Francisco Javier Aparicio es profesor-investigador de la División de Estudios Políticos del CIDE.  Es Licenciado en Economía por la Universidad de las Américas–Puebla, y cuenta con Maestría y Doctorado en Economía, con especialidad en Economía Política, por George Mason University. Sus áreas de investigación principales son: sistemas electorales y competencia política, economía política de la migración y métodos cuantitativos. Sus publicaciones recientes han aparecido en la revistas World Development, Public Choice y Política y Gobierno, así como en los volúmenes colectivos Policymaking in Latin America: How politics shapes policies, Debatiendo la Reforma Política y Perspectivas Migratorias.

Página personal / Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Francisco Javier Aparicio is assistant professor in the Political Studies Division at CIDE, in Mexico City.  He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University.  His main areas of expertise are political economy and quantitative methods.  Some of his recent research topics include: campaign finance, political competition and public policy, and the political economy of migration. His recent publications have appeared in World Development, Public Choice, and Política y Gobierno, as well as in the collective volumes Policymaking in Latin America: How politics shapes policies, Debatiendo la Reforma Política, and Perspectivas Migratorias.
Personal website / Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Some basic Q&A / Preguntas frecuentes (es un decir)

1. ¿Why do you waste your time with a blog that no one will read or comment on?
This blog is more like a personal notebook than a “discussion board”.  Here, I collect papers and references that I find interesting, and draft  random thoughts that I may develop later on.  I also use it to (shamelessly) promote my own work on the web.

2. ¿Por qué (tantas entradas) en inglés?
It is a bit akward for me to comment in Spanish whatever is being debated in English in the web (and English is the default language for most academic production).  Por otro lado, algunos comentarios sobre “México” tienen una mejor difusión en la blogósfera en español, y así aparecerán.  I also like to practice my writing skills in both languages.  Finally, and most importantly, it’s my blog so, ¿qué se le va a hacer?

3. ¿Why the “Public Economics” title if you mostly post about political economy or politics plain and simple?
I always wanted to use “Political Economy” as the title of my blog but somebody else got it first (somebody always does, and then never uses it!)  “Public economics” studies collective decision-making, the role of the public sector in the economy, the reasons and extent of government intervention, and the response of private agents to the government’s actions–it’s a broad enough term to fit my purposes, yet keeps the focus on policy and policymaking.  Oh, and if you see a lot of electoral stuff around here it is because voters (sometimes) matter too.  También es un juego de palabras: léase la relación entre la economía y “el público”, o bien la difusión de ideas económicas entre ”el público”.

4. ¿But why  __________(fill in your own question here)__________?
Probably because it’s low cost and… well,  it is just a blog.

By the way, here you can find the picture I use in the header of my blog. And here is the one I used before.