Assistant Professor of Economics
and Latin American Studies
207 Public Affairs Center
238 Church Street
Middletown, CT 06459-0007
Tel: 860.685.3958
Fax: 860.685.2301
frrodriguez@wesleyan.edu
Commentary on Current Events
"Venezuela's Empty Revolution," International Herald Tribune 2/27/07
"The Emperor Wants New Clothes," Economic and Political Weekly 12/1/07
"Economic Policies of the New Radical Left Will Fail," Americas Quarterly 8/07
Quoted in the Media
The Economist on our research on Venezuelan illiteracy (2/28/08)
The Economist on our research on Infant Mortality in Venezuela (12/6/07)
New York Times on Venezuelan Public Finances (November 30, 2007)
Financial Times on Venezuelan Cooperatives (November 20, 2007)
ESPN on Venezuelan Baseball and Politics (November 18, 2007)
New York Times on Venezuelan Gas Prices (October 30, 2007)
International Herald Tribune on Venezuelan Social Programs (August 21, 2007)
McNeil-Lehrer Newshour on Venezuelan Nationalizations (January 15, 2007)
Recent and Upcoming Talks
New School for Social Research, Economic Policy Workshop (2/4/08)
World Bank Microeconomics of Growth Conference, Rio de Janeiro (12/14/07)
Panel on Venezuelan Social Policies, CSIS, Washington DC (12/12/07)
Conference on Globalization and Rise of the Left, Princeton University (12/8/07)
Conference on Venezuela Under Chávez, Yale Law School (11/30/07)
Seminar at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (10/29/2007)
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About me
I am a Venezuelan economist with interest in economic growth,
political economy and international trade. Before coming to
Wesleyan, I served as Chief Economist of the
Venezuelan National Assembly from 2000 to 2004. I have taught at
University of Maryland, College
Park and the Instituto de Estudios
Superiores de Administración. This page has links to
published and unpublished papers, press articles, data sets and other
research related material. It also has links to my courses
in International Economics, Political Economy of Growth and Latin
American Economics. Feel free to
e-mail me with any
comments or suggestions.
I am currently on leave at the
Human Development Report Office, where I am
Head of the Research Team. Books
Venezuela:
Anatomy of a Collapse (Jointly edited with Ricardo Hausmann)
Recent Working Papers
"An
empirical test of the poverty traps hypothesis."
"The
Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta
"
(with Chang-Tai Hsieh, Edward Miguel, and Daniel Ortega)
"Are Capital
Shares Higher in Poor Countries? Evidence from Industrial Surveys"
(with Daniel Ortega)
"How Important is the Credibility Problem in Politics? Evidence from
State-Level Abortion Legislation."(with
Eduardo Zambrano)
"Cleaning Up the Kitchen Sink: Growth
Empirics When the World is Not Simple"
(New version)
Recently Published and Forthcoming Papers:
“What Makes Growth Shared? On the Political Economy of Inclusive
Development,” forthcoming, Annual World Bank Conference on
Development Economics 2008.
"Venezuela's
Revolution in Decline: Beware the Wounded Tiger," World
Policy Journal, Spring 2008.
"An Empty Revolution: The Unfulfilled Promises of Hugo Chávez,"
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008
"Freed
from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Robinson Literacy
Campaign" (with Daniel Ortega),
forthcoming, Economic Development and Cultural Change.
"Growth Collapses"
(with Ricardo Hausmann and Rodrigo Wagner) forthcoming in Reinhart,
Velasco and Vegh, eds. Money, Crises,
and Transition: Essays in Honor of Guillermo Calvo.
“Does One Size Fit All In Policy
Reform?
Cross-National Evidence and its Implications for Latin America,”
forthcoming in
Mainwaring and Scully, eds. Democratic Governability in Latin America.
"Anarchy, State, and Dystopia: Venezuelan Economic Institutions
before the Advent of Oil." (with Adam J. Gomolin),
Bulletin of Latin American Research 28(1), 2009.
Older Stuff
"The Anarchy of Numbers: Understanding the Evidence on Venezuelan
Economic Growth,"
Canadian Journal of Development Studies 27(4), 2006.
"The Political Economy of Investment in Human Capital," (with
José Pineda), Economics of Governance,
7(2), 2006.
"Inequality, Redistribution and Rent-Seeking," Economics and Politics, November 2004.
"Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence" (with Dani Rodrik),
2000 NBER Macroeconomics Annual.
"Why Do Resource-Abundant Economies Grow more Slowly?" (with Jeffrey Sachs),
Journal of Economic Growth, September 1999.
"Does Distributional Skewness Lead to Redistribution? Evidence from the United States",
Economics and Politics, July 1999.
See a full list of my publications here
Data Sets:
Venezuelan Household Surveys
1975-2005
Panel of Venezuelan Manufacturing Firms
1995-2001 and
1989-01.
The Maisanta Database, constructed by
the Venezuelan government party to document the political leanings and
activities of all Venezuelan registered voters.
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