A full PDF is available here. The LaTeX source is maintained on Overleaf.

Education
2024–2025
University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy — Master of Arts in Public Policy. Merit Scholarship.
2013–2017
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) — B.A. in Economics, graduated with honors (GPA 3.9/4.0). Best Undergraduate Thesis.
2018
Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería — Diplomas in Applied Econometrics and Finance.
Research Interests

Primary: Development Economics · Early Childhood Development
Secondary: Political Economy · Labor Economics

Research Experience

Research Professional, Center for the Economics of Human Development · 2024–present
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

  • Work with Prof. James J. Heckman on early childhood skill formation and economic preferences.
  • First author on research examining how cognitive skills and personality traits relate to economic preferences in Chinese children, using structural modeling with CRRA and Expo-Power utility specifications.
  • Paper under review at Journal of Labor Economics.

Research Assistant, Harris School of Public Policy · 2024–present
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

  • Work with Prof. Christopher Blattman on gang recruitment vulnerability in Colombia.
  • Work with Prof. Martin Castillo-Quintana on game-theoretic models of extortion.

Research Professional (Pre-Doctoral Fellow) · 2023–2024
Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, Washington, DC

  • Worked with Prof. Amory Gethin on the political economy of social movements.
  • Developed a machine-learning classification system using DeBERTa transformers to analyze congressional bill responses to the George Floyd protests and the Women’s March.

Research Analyst, Monetary and Capital Markets Department · 2021–2023
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC

  • Co-authored IMF Working Paper on ethnic gaps and economic growth in Peru (with G. Salinas and Z. Yuri).
  • Research on political instability and macroeconomic outcomes across 180+ countries.
  • Supported country missions to Sweden, South Africa, and Caribbean nations.

Research Assistant, Monetary and Capital Markets Department · 2020–2021
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC

Research Consultant, Pension Fund Department · 2019–2020
Inter-American Development Bank, Lima, Peru

Research Assistant, Centro de Investigación · 2018–2019
Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru

Working Papers

Under review

  • Relating Cognitive Skills and Personality Traits to Economic Preferences: A Study of Chinese Children (with S. Feng, J.J. Heckman, Z. Yang) — first author. Under review, Journal of Labor Economics. Uses structural modeling with sophisticated error structures to separate preferences from deliberation quality; shows that cognitive ability affects decision precision more than underlying risk preferences.

Work in progress

  • Automation Is Not a Sufficient Statistic: Robots, AI, and Inequality. Extends the Acemoglu-Restrepo task framework to two automation frontiers (physical and cognitive); pooling robot and AI exposure destroys 98% of explained variance in skill-premium changes ($R^2$ drops from 0.249 to 0.004 across 447 U.S. commuting zones). Derives a closed-form automation-mix threshold $\omega^*$ that determines the sign of inequality change.
  • Electoral Pressure and Political Lying: A Theory of Political Lying. Dynamic game where politicians trade off electoral gains against long-term credibility costs; using PolitiFact data on U.S. House members (2007–2025), final-term members lie 5.6–8.0 percentage points more than early-term members.
  • The Macroeconomic Consequences of Political Instability. Panel analysis of 180+ countries (1960–2022) on GDP growth and human capital using local projections.
  • The Shining Path of Violence: Long-term Effects on Human Capital in Peru. Geographic variation and shift-share IV strategy.
  • Trade Liberalization and Nutrition: Evidence from Peru. ENAHO data (2004–2023).
  • Congressional Responses to Social Movements: Machine Learning Evidence (with A. Gethin).

A complete, continuously updated list grouped by topic is on the Research page.

Publications
  • Chávez, C. (2024). “Minimum Wage and Ethnic-Gaps: Who are the Winners?” Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 7(2), 93–121.
  • Chávez, C. (2024). “Estimating the Effects of Financial Liberalisation on Governability and Social Stability.” Foreign Trade Review, 59(4), 588–614.
  • Chávez, C. (2024). “Latin American Firm Cooperation Payoff Evidence.” The International Trade Journal, 1–30.
  • Chávez, C. (2023). “The effects of mining presence on inequality, labor income, and poverty: evidence from Peru.” Mineral Economics, 36(4), 615–642.
  • Chávez, C. (2023). “Domestic Violence, Labor Market, and Minimum Wage: Theory and Evidence.” Review of Economics, 74(3), 195–233.
  • Chávez, C., Salinas, G., & Yuri, Z. (2022). “Closing Peru’s Ethnic Gaps Amidst Sustained Economic Growth.” IMF Working Paper 2022/180.

Complete list at Google Scholar.

Honors & Awards
2024
Merit Scholarship, University of Chicago
2023
GSAS Future Leader Fellowship, Tufts University
2017
Best Undergraduate Thesis Award, UNMSM
Conference Presentations
2023
IEA World Congress, Medellín, Colombia
2022
LACEA-LAMES Annual Meeting, PUCP, Lima · Bolivian Conference on Development Economics, La Paz
2021–2022
Annual Conference of Peruvian Economists, Lima
Teaching Experience
2020–2022
Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería — Instructor: Econometric Theory, Econometrics I
2015–2018
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos — Teaching Assistant: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics
Technical Skills

Programming: Stata (advanced) · R (advanced) · Python (proficient) · Matlab (proficient)
Software: LaTeX · ArcGIS · MySQL
Methods: Structural estimation · panel data econometrics · causal inference · instrumental variables · machine learning · NLP
Languages: Spanish (native) · English (fluent)

Professional Affiliations

American Economic Association · Royal Economic Society · Econometric Society

References

James J. Heckman — Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Harris School, University of Chicago. jjh@uchicago.edu.

Amory Gethin — Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank. agethin@worldbank.org.

Vincent Pons — Byron Wien Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School. vpons@hbs.edu.

Additional references available upon request.