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I am an Associate Professor at the Institute for Economic Policies, Universidad Andres Bello (Santiago, Chile).
My current research interests are Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, and Political Economy.
Here you can find my C.V.
I am also co-director of the SABE project (Sistema de Análisis de Bolsas de Empleo), which gathers and harmonizes real-time data from job ads and applicants from multiple online job boards in Chile and classifies demand and supply side into occupations using machine learning techniques.
These are profiles in: Google Scholar, RePeC, SSRN, Research Gate, ORCID, Scopus.
Contact: benjamin.villena.r (at) gmail.com
News
News
September 2, 2026: Ex-Ante covers my Reporte de Dinámica y Transiciones Laborales for the May-July 2026 rolling quarter, on a labor market that creates fewer jobs but a larger share of formal ones.
September 2, 2026: I wrote a column for La Tercera on the transitions behind the 9.5% unemployment rate, arguing that unemployment keeps rising because the collapse of informal hiring outweighs the improvement in formal hiring.
September 2, 2026: Interview with Radio Agricultura on the state of the labor market, unemployment, informality, and the bills currently before Congress.
September 2, 2026: A new edition of my Reporte de Dinámica y Transiciones Laborales, for the May-July 2026 rolling quarter, is available. It shows that the weekly probability of moving from unemployment into a formal job rose from 2.1% to 2.5%, while the informal channel fell from 2.9% to 1.8%.
August 28, 2026: Emol gathers my views on whether the rebound in economic activity expected for spring and summer will be strong enough to pull the labor market out of the crisis.
August 27, 2026: El Mercurio quotes my views on the bill regulating hourly contracts and its potential to move short-hours work in Chile into formal employment.
August 27, 2026: I presented at the Annual Meeting of the Chilean Economic Society (SECHI) the paper "Skill premia for AI and computer requirements: evidence from online job ads."
August 12, 2026: Ex-Ante covers my Reporte de Dinámica y Transiciones Laborales for the April-June 2026 rolling quarter, on the quiet precarization of employment in Chile.
August 10, 2026: I posted a LinkedIn article on the flows behind Chile's labor market, showing that the current high unemployment owes mostly to weak job creation rather than to layoffs and quits, based on the rotating-panel microdata of the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (ENE).
August 4, 2026: Our paper Do high-wage jobs attract more applicants? Directed search evidence from the online labor market (Journal of Labor Economics, 2019, with Stefano Banfi) surpassed 200 citations.
August 2, 2026: Portal Metropolitano cites my perspectives on the evolution of unemployment in the coming months.
July 31, 2026: Radio Universidad de Chile plays some comments on unemployment figures.
July 31, 2026: Publimicro mentions a comment on the future of unemployment in the coming months.
July 31, 2026: Diario Financiero highlights my observation on the reduction of potential inactive persons and its relationship with the unemployment outlook.
July 31, 2026: TVN and Canal 24 horas highlight excerpts from my interview on the recent unemployment figures.
July 31, 2026: Radio Cooperativa broadcasts some of my comments on unemployment figures.
July 31, 2026: Emol highlights my comments on the weakness of the labor market and the situation of female employment.
July 20, 2026: Together with the members of the Labor Reactivation Board (Mesa de Reactivación Laboral), we wrote this column published by La Tercera.
July 13, 2026: El Mercurio portrays my perspectives on employment in upcoming months in Chile.
July 10, 2026: Interview with Radio Dulce (V Región) about the recommendations of the Labor Reactivation Committee.
July 7, 2026: I posted a LinkedIn article explaining the required reforms in the National Training System Agency (SENCE) in line with the Labor Reactivation Committee (Mesa de Reactivación Laboral) appointed by the Ministry of Labor Affairs in Chile.
July 7, 2026: A new version of our paper Labor Markets, Inequality, and Hiring Selection (with A. Pizzo) is available.
July 4, 2026: I wrote a column for Ex-Ante about the reform suggested by the Labor Reactivation Committee about expanding the time window to compute legal hours in Chile.
July 3, 2026: I posted a LinkedIn article on the proposed use of employment subsidies in Chile to deal with the crisis in the labor market in line with the Labor Reactivation Committee (Mesa de Reactivación Laboral) appointed by the Ministry of Labor Affairs in Chile.
July 2, 2026: My comments on the government's announcements of job creation subsidies in La Tercera.
July 2, 2026: Diario Financiero asked me about the situation of unemployment of young and college-educated workers in the context of the labor market crisis in Chile.
July 2, 2026: Interview on Radio Agricultura and Radio Sonar on the potential recession, employment perspectives, and recommendations by Labor Reactivation Committee.
July 1, 2026: A LinkedIn post on the proposals to children's daycare coverage to spur the female labor market in Chile in line with the Labor Reactivation Committee (Mesa de Reactivación Laboral).
July 1, 2026: Interviews in several radio stations to talk about recommendations of the Labor Reactivation Committee (Mesa de Reactivación Laboral) (Radio Futuro, Radio USACH, Radio Infinita, Radio Agricultura)
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