Desmet – Department of Economics Universidad Carlos III

Bio

Klaus Desmet joined the Department of Economics at SMU in 2014 after being on the faculty at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. He holds an MSc in Business and Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Research (CEPR). His research focuses on regional and urban economics, international trade, long-run economic growth, and the political economy of diversity. In 2010 he was awarded the August Lösch Prize and in 2019 he received the Robert E. Lucas Jr. Prize.

Selected Publications

“The Geography of Development,” Journal of Political Economy, 2018, 126, 903-98 (with Dávid Krisztián Nagy and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg)

“Culture, Ethnicity and Diversity,” American Economic Review, 2017, 107, 2479-2513 (with Ignacio Ortuño and Romain Wacziarg)

“The Settlement of the United States, 1800-2000: The Long Transition to Gibrat’s Law,” Journal of Urban Economics, 2017, 98, 50-68 (with Jordan Rappaport)

“Resistance to Technology Adoption: The Rise and Decline of Guilds,” Review of Economic Dynamics, 2014, 17, 437-458 (with Stephen Parente)

“Spatial Development,” American Economic Review, 2014, 104, 1211-43 (with Esteban Rossi-Hansberg)

“Urban Accounting and Welfare,” American Economic Review, 2013, 103, 2296-2327 (with Esteban Rossi-Hansberg)

“The Evolution of Markets and the Revolution of Industry: A Unified Theory of Growth,” Journal of Economic Growth, 2012, 17, 205-234 (with Stephen Parente)

“The Political Economy of Linguistic Cleavages,” Journal of Development Economics, 2012, 97, 322-338 (with Ignacio Ortuño and Romain Wacziarg)