Alexandra Soberón -
Investigadora Principal
Associate Professor of Econometrics, University of Cantabria
Alexandra Soberón Vélez earned her PhD in Economics in 2014 at the University of Cantabria. As Principal Investigator of a research project funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) and supported by the European Union’s Next Generation EU program, Dr. Soberón leads cutting-edge investigations at the intersection of econometric theory and empirical applications.
Her research interests encompass econometrics, panel data, finance, and nonparametric and semiparametric models, with particular emphasis on developing innovative estimation and testing methods for panel data models under flexible functional forms. Her work addresses fundamental challenges, including endogeneity and individual heterogeneity, thereby contributing to improved empirical research across diverse fields such as consumption behavior, energy policy, and technological efficiency.
Dr. Soberón has cultivated an impressive international research profile through collaborations and visiting appointments at distinguished institutions worldwide, including Carlos III University of Madrid, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Giessen, University of Ferrara, Nankai University, and the Cambridge Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), where she held a prestigious José Castillejo Fellowship.
Her scholarly contributions have been published in leading journals, including The Econometrics Journal, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Econometric Reviews, Statistica Sinica, Utilities Policy, and Computational Statistics. Her work has also appeared in the Journal of Economic Surveys, establishing her as a prominent voice in the field of panel data econometrics. Her publications address
critical methodological challenges in nonparametric and semiparametric estimation, cross-sectional dependence, spatial modeling, and varying-coefficient frameworks.
Luis Antonio Arteaga-Molina -
Member Research Team
Associate Professor of Econometrics, University of Cantabria
Luis Antonio Arteaga Molina earned his BSc in Business Administration and Management with a specialty in International Business, followed by a MSc in Economics, both from the University of Cantabria. He completed his PhD in Economics at the same institution in 2019, supported by a predoctoral scholarship from 2014-2018. In 2017, he was selected through a competitive global process to attend the VI Lindau Meeting of Economic Sciences with Nobel
Laureates in Germany. From 2019-2021, he served as Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Dr. Arteaga centers his research interest on econometric methodology, particularly varying coefficient models, empirical likelihood methods, and panel data analysis. He has published his work in prestigious journal such as the Journal of Econometrics and the Journal of Multivariate Analysis. He has also presented his findings at major international conferences including the CFE and EcoSta, and has delivered seminars at institutions such as the University of Geneva, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, and Universidad Autónoma Madrid. His research activities have been supported by competitive funding from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Banco Santander. He has also contributed to knowledge transfer
initiatives through collaboration with the Cantabrian Institute of Statistics.
Ana Fernández Sainz -
Member Research Team
Full Professor of Applied Economics, University of the Basque Country
Ana Isabel Fernández Sainz is a member of the Public Economics Institute since 2016. Her research lies at the intersection of Applied Econometrics and Public Policy Analysis, with a
particular focus on Labour Economics, Inequality and Welfare, Development, Transport Economics, and Education.
Her work combines econometric rigor with an applied orientation toward understanding real-world socio-economic issues. She has published in leading academic journals such as the International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Social Indicators Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Ekonomiaz: Basque Review of Economics. Recent studies include analyses of depressive symptoms and absenteeism using semiparametric econometric methods, social exclusion among older adults in Europe, and the construction of synthetic indicators of well-being for Basque municipalities.
Professor Fernández Sainz has been involved in numerous research and knowledge-transfer projects with public institutions such as the Basque Government, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and the Statistical Institutes of the Basque Country, Navarra, and Andalusia. These collaborations have contributed to the development of welfare indicators, policy evaluation frameworks, and regional development analysis.
Daniel J. Henderson -
Member Research Team
Full Professor of Economics, University of Alabama
Daniel J. Henderson is a Professor of Economics at the University of Alabama, as well as a Research Fellow at IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of California, Riverside in 2003 and his BA in Economics from the University of California, Davis in 1998. He was formerly an associate and assistant professor of economics at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
His research focus is in applied nonparametric microeconometrics with an emphasis in the economics of education. He has also written extensively on child health determinants, economic growth and development, environmental economics, and international trade. He has held visiting appointments at institutions including Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium, Nankai University and Xiamen University in China, the University of Passau in Germany, the University of Colorado, and Southern Methodist University.
Together with Christopher F. Parmeter, he authored Applied Nonparametric Econometrics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. His scholarly work has appeared in leading journals including Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Economic Journal, European Economic Review, International Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Human Resources, Economics of Education Review, and Computational Statistics and Data Analysis. His publications also include work in Econometric Reviews and Foundations and Trends in Econometrics, with recent contributions focusing on nonparametric multidimensional fixed effects panel data models, difference-in-differences estimation frameworks, and production analysis with asymmetric errors.
Patricia Moreno -
Member Research Team
Academic director, International University La Rioja (UNIR)
Patricia Moreno Mencía is a researcher and academic whose work lies at the intersection of applied micro-econometrics, labour economics and health economics. She holds a Doctorate (PhD) in Economics from the University of Cantabria.
Her research focus centres on non- and semi-parametric estimation methods, modelling individual economic behaviour under selection, endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, and applying these methods to labour market participation, health status effects (such as chronicity or disability) and socio-economic outcomes. For example, her doctoral thesis considers new estimation techniques for labour supply and wages of workers with chronic
illness or disability.
Her research is notable for combining sophisticated econometric methodology with policy-relevant applications — evaluating the impact of health, disability and institutional factors on labour market outcomes — thereby bridging quantitative methods and social welfare issues. She has published in journals and venues including Papeles de Economía Española, Revista de la Fundación CASER para la Dependencia, or International Journal of Health Economics & Management.
Antonio Musolesi -
Member Research Team
Full Professor of Econometrics, University of Ferrara
Antonio Musolesi graduated from the University of Bologna with a dissertation on production function estimation with time series, and continued his education with an MSc in Statistics. He served as Senior Researcher at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, INRA, Applied Economics Laboratory (INRA-CNRS) in Grenoble (2010-2013), and as Researcher at INRA, Dijon (2006-2010). He also held a post-doctoral position at CNRS, University of Burgundy Dijon in 2006, and spent a long visiting period at the London School of Economics, Spatial Economics Research Centre (2009-2010).
His research addresses critical issues in technology diffusion, environmental economics, productivity analysis, and regional development, with particular emphasis on cross-sectional dependence and nonparametric methodologies in panel data frameworks. His work has been published in leading journals including Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Economic Geography, Econometric Reviews, Applied Economics, European Review of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Productivity Analysis, and Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics. His research addresses critical issues in technology diffusion, environmental economics, productivity analysis, and regional development, with particular emphasis on cross-sectional dependence and nonparametric methodologies in panel data frameworks.
Santiago Pereda Fernández -
Member Research Team
Assistant Professor of Econometrics, University of Cantabria
Santiago Pereda Fernández earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Cantabria, followed by an MA in Economics and Finance from CEMFI in Madrid. He subsequently obtained both a PhD in Economics and an MA in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked at Banca d’Italia from September 2014 to February 2022, before returning to the University of Cantabria as Assistant Professor in March 2022.
His research focuses on econometrics (both theoretical and empirical) and labor economics, with special emphasis on economics of education. His specific interests include endogeneity, distributional effects, network econometrics, determinants of students’ performance, and social interactions.
His scholarly contributions have been published in leading journals including Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Econometric Reviews, Journal of Econometric Methods, and Economica. His research addresses critical issues in education economics, including test score manipulation, social spillovers in classrooms, and teacher effectiveness. His work has also examined public-private wage gaps, grant assignment rules, and the identification and estimation of triangular models with binary treatments.
Juan Manuel Rodriguez-Poo -
Member Research Team
Full Professor of Econometrics, University of Cantabria
Juan Manuel Rodríguez Poo holds a degree in Economics and Business from the University of the Basque Country and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Since 2003, he has held professorships in Econometrics, first at the University of Zaragoza (2003-2005) and subsequently at the University of Cantabria from 2005 to the present. His academic career also includes positions as Associate Professor at the universities of the Basque Country and Cantabria. He has served as visiting professor at prestigious institutions including the Humboldt University of Berlin, Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, and the University of Geneva.
Professor Rodríguez Poo specializes in nonparametric and semiparametric estimation methods, as well as econometric analysis of individual behavior modeling. His research has been published in prestigious international journals including the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Econometric Theory, and Test. He has presented his research at numerous national and international conferences and has undertaken research stays at the London School of Economics, Catholic University of Louvain, and Carlos III University of Madrid.
Beyond academia, Rodríguez Poo served as Director of the Cantabrian Institute of Statistics (ICANE) from 2004 to 2011 and was appointed President of Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) in October 2018, serving until June 2022. Currently, he is a member of the European Statistics Governance Advisory Board, contributing his expertise to European statistical policy and governance.
Stefan Sperlich -
Member Research Team
Full Professor of Econometrics, Geneva University
Stefan Sperlich received a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Göttingen and he earned his Doctorate in Economics from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He ha also been Professor at the Georg-August Universität Göttingen (Germany) and visiting professor in the department of statistics and econometrics of the University Carlos III (Madrid).
Through his academic career, Dr. Sperlich has been interested in the analysis of econometric models, empirical economics, smoothing techniques and testing of model specification for nonparametric and semiparametric methods, computational statistics, optimal designing, and financial econometrics.
He is author or coauthor of 13 books and has published in several top scientific journals of statistics and econometrics such as International Statistical Review, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Journal of the American Statistical Association, The Annals of Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B, Econometric Theory, and Journal of Applied Econometrics.
Dr. Sperlich is a member of several committees such as the Swiss Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities, the German Evaluation and Development Center. Also, he is a member of the organizing and scientific committee of the UNECE seminar (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and the scientific team of the Swiss Statistical Society, among others.