Personal Information

I was born in Río Colorado and then I lived ten years in General Conesa, two small towns in Río Negro, Argentina. At the age of ten, my family moved to Balcarce, in the state of Buenos Aires. Balcarce is the hometown of Juan Manuel Fangio, a famous F-1 car racer who won five F-1 championships. (You may visit the Fangio museum here).

I completed my secondary school at the Liceo Naval Capitán Moyano in Necochea in 1987, and my BA in economics in the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), in La Plata, in 1993. I have benefited from the excellent 5-year program in economics at the UNLP, which I complemented with Masters studies in Banking Disciplines. Both, Italian and Argentine professors were the lecturers in this Master Program sponsored by the UNLP and the University of Siena (Italy).

I was finishing my Master in 1995 when I started working as instructor of economics and as research economist for (nonprofit) Centro de Estudios Bonaerenses. Later, I worked for the Ministry of Finance of the State of Buenos Aires. At both places my research was in Banking and Macroeconomics, giving special attention to the developments in the Argentine financial system.

I started my doctoral studies at North Carolina State University in 1998 and I have completed these studies in 2003, when I joined the Economics Department at Iowa State University. As a Ph.D. student, I spent a semester at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and carried out a consultant research for Inter-American Development Bank.

I am married to Ma. Paula Galella and I have two children, Manuela and Pedro. I like to play soccer and squash and, although I do not look like a professional player, I can make decent games.