Albert Gragera-Lladó, professor of economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), has been appointed co-director of the infrastructure and transport research programme at the Barcelona Institute of Economics. Gragera succeeds Professor Anna Matas and will share the leadership duties with Javier Asensio, also a professor at the UAB.

Albert Gragera is an expert in urban economics. His research focuses on the evaluation of transport policies, the relationships between transport and land use, and the role of the automobile in cities, with a special interest in the interaction of parking policies with all these phenomena. His research has been published in specialized journals on transport economics. He has acted as an adviser public and private institutions, and has participated in research and innovation projects both in Spain and abroad.

Thus, the programme enters a new phase after several years of intense and ground-breaking activity in which Anna Matas has played a very important role. The infrastructure and transport research programme will continue to be a benchmark in promoting research in this field from an economic perspective, as it pursues its aim of generating knowledge that is useful to society and to the design of public policy. The programme focuses on aspects such as the effects of infrastructure investments and transport policies on economic growth, their environmental impact, and their distributive effects on the region.

In addition to the two directors, the group of researchers in this field includes professors Anna Matas, Miquel Àngel Garcia-López, Daniel Montolio, Jordi Perdiguero, and Josep Lluis Raymond.