The IEB has six new PhD students enrolled in the PhD course in Economics at the University of Barcelona (UB). These six new doctoral candidates are from four different nationalities, and all of them have notably international backgrounds.

Abhinav Khemka from India has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Queensland, Australia, and has experience as a researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE). His thesis supervisors are Pilar Sorribas, IEB researcher and UB lecturer, and Jordi Muñoz, also a lecturer at the UB. His topics of interest are development economics and political economy, and his thesis project is entitled “Essays in Political Economics: Theory and Evidence from India”.

The second doctoral student is Daniel Favre de Noguera, Spain, who has a master’s degree in economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. His areas of interest are political economy, the evaluation of public policies and climate change policies. His thesis, entitled “Essays on the Political Economy of Climate Change”, is supervised by Professor Albert Solé and Matteo Gamalerio, both teachers at the UB and also IEB researchers.

Ha Luong, from Vietnam, has also just joined the IEB as a doctoral student. Ha Luong has master’s degrees in economics from the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI) and also from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome. Her thesis supervisor is the IEB researcher Judit Vall. Her research and her thesis focus on issues of gender economy.

Àlex Izquierdo Nofuentes, from Spain, is the fourth new doctoral student at the IEB. With a master’s degree in economic analysis from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, his research centres on the fields of education economics, behavioral economics, public economics and applied microeconomics. His thesis supervisors are Professor Andreu Arenas and Professor Daniel Montolio, both IEB researchers. His thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of decision-making processes.

The fifth doctoral student is Darío Serrano-Puente, also from Spain. Darío arrives at the IEB with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Mannheim in Germany, and his subjects of interest are public finances, public economics and the evaluation of public policies. His thesis supervisor is the UB lecturer Dirk Foremny and a researcher at the IEB. Among the issues Darío will explore in his thesis is the impact of tax reforms on taxpayer behaviour.

And finally, Alyvia McTague from the United States will also study for her PhD at the IEB. Alyvia has a master’s degree in economics from University College Dublin. She works on issues of environmental economics, applied economics, health economics, and public policy economics. The UB professor José García Quevedo will supervise her thesis together with François Cohen, both IEB researchers. Alyvia’s thesis will focus on issues of energy inequalities and their relationship with health.