Economists Wei Zheng, Elisabetta Calabresi and Caterina Muratori have joined the Barcelona Institute of Economics as researchers. With their incorporation, the IEB now has a total of 45 researchers and thus continues to broaden its international profile.

The three academics join the IEB linked to the Gender, Institutions and Culture Research programme led by IEB researcher Núria Rodríguez-Planas. This programme is funded by an advanced grant from the European Research Council (ERC), WomEmpower: The Causal Effect of Motherhood, Gender Norms, and Cash Transfers to Women on Intimate Partner Violence (2024-2029).

Dr Zheng is an expert in public policy and applied policy evaluation, labour economics, health economics and applied microeconomics. With a PhD in economics from the University of Connecticut, before joining the IEB she was a professor at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China.

Dr Calabresi’s fields of interest are gender economics, development economics and public economics. With a PhD from the University of Florence, Calabresi has been a consultant at the UNICEF evaluation office.

Dr Muratori’s fields of interest are health economics, gender economics and labour economics. After obtaining her PhD at the University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), she previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University.