¡Hola!

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Economic Analysis and Policy from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. I am also a Ph.D. fellow at the Centre for Real Estate and Urban Economics, and a part-time Economist/Deemed Employee at Statistics Canada. Before grad school, I was a junior economist at the Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of Chile.

My current projects include: combining machine learning methods with economic theory to delineate neighbourhoods based on historical location choices, using administrative data to study the causal impact of local agglomeration spillovers on entrepreneurial success while accounting for ownership location choices at the neighbourhood level, and recently analyzing the existence and effects of gender location constraints on entrepreneurial outcomes.

I will be joining Analysis Group (Groupe d’Analyse) in Montreal as an Associate upon graduation.

View my CV (external link to github repo)!.

Interests
  • Urban Economics
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation
  • Industrial Organization
Education
  • Ph.D. in Economic Analysis and Policy, 2022

    Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

  • M.A. in Economic Analysis, 2012

    University of Chile

  • B.A. in Economics, 2010

    University of Chile

Research

.js-id-work-in-progress
Startup Location, Local Spillovers and Neighborhood Sorting
Job Market Paper (New Draft!)
Funding: Statistics Canada Research Affiliate Program and BEAR Ph.D. Research Award
Abstract
How critical is spatial concentration for the success of startup firms? This paper uses data on the universe of firms in large Canadian cities to study this question at the level of city blocks and their surrounding neighborhoods. To account for sorting within blocks, I use a newly developed clustering algorithm to construct neighborhoods relevant for each industry within which sorting across blocks is conditionally random. To account for sorting across neighborhoods, I develop a model of neighborhood selection, where entrepreneurs choose neighborhoods based on expected startup outcomes and preferences for location. Results show that spillovers of block average same-industry employment and revenue are hyper-local and mostly fade away after 75 meters. These spillovers have economically significant effects on startups' end-of-year revenue, and survival rates. For a sense of magnitude, going from the 10th to the 90th industry-specific percentile of incumbents' average revenue increases the median startup revenue by 8.2%. These effects are heterogeneous across industries, with employment-intensive industries benefiting relatively more from larger while knowledge-intensive industries benefiting relatively more from better incumbents firms.
Employment Generation, Firm Size, and Innovation in Chile
IDB Publications No 54258, Inter American Development Bank. Oct. 2011.

Fellowships, Grants and Awards

TD Management Data and Analytics Lab
TD MDAL Research Grant
Covers research costs related to a project using frontier methods in data analytics and machine learning.
Behavioral Economics in Action at Rotman
BEAR PhD Award
Covers research costs related to project that studies firms location choices
CRESSE
2018 CRESSE Canadian Fellow
Fellowship to attend a summer school that provided a comprehensive account of the most up-to-date developments in economic theory, empirical analysis and legislation in the policy areas of Competition and Regulation.
Connaught Fund
Connaught International Student Scholarship
Award intended to attract excellent international doctoral students. Every year, around 20 scholarships are awarded across all University of Toronto first year students.
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Young Economist Delegate in Economic Sciences
Their aim is to bring together Nobel laureates and young economists to foster economic research exchange between different generations and cultures
Universidad de Chile
Best Graduate Student Award
Given to the student with the highest GPA in the 2012 cohort of the M.A. in Economic Analysis from the Department of Economics, Universidad de Chile

Academic and Professional Experience

(last 5 years)

 
 
 
 
 
Statistics Canada
Economist | Economic Analysis Division
Jan 2021 – Present Ottawa and Remote
 
 
 
 
 
Statistics Canada
Deemed Employee | Canadian Centre for Data Development and Economic Research
Feb 2019 – Present Ottawa and Remote
 
 
 
 
 
Statistics Canada
Research Affiliate | Economic Analysis Division
Aug 2019 – Mar 2020 Ottawa
 
 
 
 
 
Finance Canada
Visiting Assistant Economist
May 2020 – Jul 2020 Remote
 
 
 
 
 
Rotman School of Management | University of Toronto
Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant
Aug 2016 – Present Toronto

Teaching Assistant:

  • Managerial Economics (MBA)
  • Model-Based Decision Making (MBA)
  • Real Estate Finance and Investment (MBA/Commerce)
  • Sports Analytics (MBA)
  • Strategic Management (MBA)

Research Assistant:

  • Lu Han
  • Nate Baum-Snow
  • Will Strange
  • Bernardo Blum
  • Joanne Oxley
  • Pamela Medina-Quispe

Contact