Professor Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero

Profile

Roles:

• Professor of Policy and Quantitative Methods
• Member of the Department of Business Analytics and Applied Economics

Biography:

Roxana's research analyses how to overcome the most significant barriers to development. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge (King’s College) and joined Queen Mary in September 2015.

Previously, she taught and held research positions at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Her research has been published among others in Journal of Conflict Resolution, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Development Policy Review, Journal of Economic Geography, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, Public Money and Management.

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Teaching

Postgraduate:

• BUSM073: Economics for Development
• BUSM112: Applied Empirical Methods

Research

Research Interests:

My research analyses how to overcome the main constraints to development. I am particularly interested in three of these barriers:

• Violent conflict
• The persistent effects of inequalities in wealth
• Poor economic governance

My fields of interests are Development Economics, Political Economy and Applied Economics.

Centre and Group Membership:

• Member of the Centre for Globalisation Research (CGR)

Publications

• Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana, and Salgado Nayeli. 2023. New trends in South-South migration: The economic impact of COVID-19 and immigration enforcement, Applied Geography, 154.
• Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana. 2023. The contrasting effects of ethnic and partisan identity on performance evaluation, Political Behavior.
• Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana. 2023. Businesses create more jobs in countries with higher share of immigrants because of skill complementarity, Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 13(2).
• Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana. 2022. Conflicts increased in Africa shortly after COVID-19 lockdowns, but welfare assistance reduced fatalities, Economic Modelling, 116.
• Carreto Constantino, Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana, and Rodríguez Tania. 2022. Climate-driven mosquito-borne viral suitability index: measuring risk transmission of dengue, chikungunya and Zika in Mexico, International Journal of Health Geographics, 21 (1), 1-23.
• Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana. 2021. Inequality, persistence of the informal economy, and club convergence, World Development. 
• Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana. 2021. How does inequality affect long-run growth? Cross-industry, cross-country evidence, Economic Modelling. 
• Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana, and Ahamed, Mostak. 2021. COVID-19 response needs to broaden financial inclusion to curb the rise in poverty World Development. 
• Birch Sarah, Buril Fernanda, Cheeseman Nic, Clark Alistair, Darnolf Staffan, Dodsworth  Susan, Garber Larry, Gutiérrez-Romero Roxana, Hollstein Tanja, James Toby S., Mohan Vasu and Sawyer Koffi. 2020. How to hold elections safely and democratically during the COVID-19 pandemic, The British Academy. 
• Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana, and LeBas, Adrienne. 2020. Does electoral violence affect vote choice and willingness to vote? Conjoint analysis of a vignette experiment, Journal of Peace Research. 
• Gutiérrez-Romero R. and Oviedo M. The good the bad and the ugly: The socio-economic impact of drug cartels and their violence in Mexico, Journal of Economic Geography, forthcoming.
• Gutiérrez-Romero R. and Méndez-Errico, L. (2017) Does inequality foster or hinder the growth of entrepreneurship in the long run? Research on Economic Inequality, 25, forthcoming.
• 2016. Estimating the impact of Mexican drug cartels and drug-related homicides on crime and perceptions of safety. Journal of Economic Geography, 16:(4)
• 2014. An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices and Effects of Political Violence and Vote-Buying, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 58:8.
• 2013. To What Extent Did Ethnicity and Economic Issues Matter in the 2007 Kenyan Elections, Development Policy Review, 31:3.
• 2013. Decentralization, Accountability and the 2007 MPs Elections in Kenya, Journal of Development Studies, 49:1.
• 2012. Triggers and Characteristics of the 2007 Kenyan Electoral Violence, World Development, 40:4. (with S. Dercon)
• 2011. “Elections and institutions in Kenya”, in Adam, C. Collier, P. (Eds.) Kenya Policies for Prosperity. Oxford University Press (with Collier, P. and Kimenyi, M.).
• 2010. To what extent does deprivation affect the performance of English local authorities? Journal of International Review of Administrative Sciences, 76:1. (with Haubrich, D. and McLean, I). Winner of the Best Article by IRAS Journal and Sage Editorial. Reprinted in Chinese Mandarin and also:
• 2010. Reprinted in French: Dans quelle mesure la privation affecte-t-elle le travail des autorités locales anglaises? Revue Internationale des Sciences Administratives.
• 2010. Reprinted in Spanish: ¿En qué medida afectan las privaciones a los resultados de las autoridades locales inglesas? Revista Internacional de Ciencias Administrativas.
• 2009. Estimating the impact of England’s area-based intervention “New Deal for Communities” on employment. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 39:3.
• 2008. Evaluating England’s ‘New Deal for Communities’ programme, Journal of Economic Geography, 8:6. (with Noble, M.)
• 2008. The limitations of performance assessments of 2008. The public bodies: the case of deprivation as an environmental constraint on English local government, Environmental and Planning C: Government and Policy, 26:4. (with Haubrich, D and Mclean, I).
• 2008. “Encouraging entrepreneurship among young people: Evidence and challenges in Europe” in Neumaier, O., Schweiger, G. Sedmak, C. (Eds.): Perspectives on Work. Munster etc: LIT Verlag.
• 2007. The perils and pitfalls of performance measurement: The case of local authorities in the UK, Public Money Management, 27:2. (with McLean, I. and Haubrich, D.)
• 2007. “The impact of England’s New Deal for Communities on worklessness” in Social Policy and Regional Development in Europe, The Institute of Economics Zagreb, Croatia. (with Noble M. and Covizzi, I.)

Selected published government research reports

• 2009. Leaving Benefits Behind II: Labour market transitions of workless people in Wales 1999-2005. The Welsh Assembly Government, UK. (with Anttila, C., Griggs, J., McLennan, D., Noble, M.)
• 2008. Developing Small Area Measures on Fear of Crime: a feasibility study. Department for Communities and Local Government, UK. (with Withworth, A., McLennan, D., Noble M.)
• 2007. Narrowing the Gap? Modelling the NDC Programme impact on pupil attainment and worklessness at individual level and resultant policy implications. Department for Communities and Local Government, UK. (with Wilkinson, K.)
• 2007. Leaving Benefits Behind, Department for Communities and Local Government, UK. (with Antilla, C., Griggs, J., Mason, D., McLennan, D., Noble, M., Shung-King, M., Wilkinson, K.,Whitworth, A.)
• 2006. The child support grant: A Sub-provincial analysis of eligibility and take up in January 2005. National Department of Social Development, South Africa. (with Noble, M., Wright, G., Barnes, H., Noble, S., Ntshongwana, P., McLennan D., D. Avenell.)
• 2006. Evaluating & the Impact of the Neighbourhood Management Programme on Worklessness, Baseline Report. Research Report 26, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, UK. (with McLennan, D., Antilla, C., Mason, D., Wilkinson, K., Mokhar, C, Dibben, C., Smith, G., Noble, M. )
• 2005. Worklessness in New Deal for Communities Areas: Findings from phase 1 of the National Evaluation. Research report for the National NDC Evaluation, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, UK. (with Noble, M., Antilla C. McLennan D., Covizzi I., Mason D., Wilkinson K.)
• 2005. The child support grant: A Sub-provincial analysis of eligibility and take up in January 2004. National Department of Social Development, South Africa. (with Noble, M., Wright, G., Barnes, H., Noble, S., Ntshongwana, P., McLennan D., D. Avenell)

Supervision

Areas of Supervision Expertise:

Professor Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero welcomes prospective doctoral students who have a strong quantitative research background and a strong desire to pursue a career in the academia.

Students with backgrounds in development, economics, political science, statistics, mathematics or computer science are encouraged to apply.

Please send your CV and a 4-page research proposal to r.gutierrez@qmul.ac.uk. The proposal must outline the overall research question that will be examined, the research questions and hypotheses that will be assessed in each of the three separate articles to be written during the PhD, as well as the causal inferential methods and the data sources to be used.

Students without postgraduate degrees or previous research training are strongly recommended to study the MRes programme in International Business first and under Roxana’s supervision.

Research topics

• Economic development
• Inequality and poverty
• Conflict and peace process
• Informal and illegal markets
• Gender violence in the developing world
• Causal inference

Public Engagement

I am a member of the Oxford-LSE research networks Improving Institutions for pro-poor Growth (iiG), Economics of Inequality and Poverty Analysis (EQUALITAS), director of Economic Development and Impact Evaluation (EDIE) network, and founding member of the Equity and Development Research Group (EDReG).