The Summer School courses are taught by professors from VSE as well as by associate members of LimaSE, all of them leading researchers in their areas of specialization.
Our 2024 Lima Summer School is a unique opportunity for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students in Latin America and all around the globe to interact with and learn from a world-class faculty. It also offers recent graduates and practitioners in economics the opportunity to develop and strengthen their areas of expertise.
The Vancouver School of Economics (VSE) is delighted to announce our continuing collaboration with the Lima School of Economics for the upcoming 2024 Lima Summer School in Economics. We value the strong connection shared with the Lima School, and our professors are eager to once again engage with some of the brightest students from all around South America. In the 2024 Summer School, VSE Professor Claudio Ferraz will lead a mini-course on Political Economy and Development, and VSE Professor Jamie McCasland will instruct a mini-course on Applied Development Economics. This presents an excellent opportunity for students and young professional economists to delve into cutting-edge research in economics, elevate their career prospects, and lay the groundwork for future studies.
We sincerely invite you to consider joining us in Lima in 2024 for this enriching experience!
We are delighted to unveil the eighth installment of the Lima Summer School in Economics, conducted in partnership with the Vancouver School of Economics in British Columbia, Canada. This summer program provides concise courses tailored for students, academics, and young professionals eager to refine their skills through the latest advancements in empirical and theoretical methods within the field of economics. Dr. Claudio Ferraz and Dr. Jamie MacCasland from VSE-UBC will lead courses delving into advanced topics in political economy and applied development economics. Additionally, Gabriel Natividad from LimaSE will conduct an exceptional empirical course focusing on the Peruvian business landscape. These challenging courses welcome participants from esteemed universities in Peru, Latin America, and across the globe. The Summer School is dedicated to delivering these courses in a lively and invigorating setting, fostering connections among participants who share common interests in one of South America's most dynamic cities. We encourage you to submit your application, and we eagerly anticipate your presence in Lima!
“We are happy to launch the eighth edition of the Lima Summer School in Economics. Once again, we are collaborating with one of the most prestigious economics schools, the Vancouver School of Economics (British Columbia, Canada). This edition offers three specialized courses in development economics, political economy and firms’ strategy. The Professors will cover topics in the frontier of these fields, including reviewing recent literature and recent applied methods. The courses can be useful for students preparing to apply to master's or doctoral programs, as the level of the courses is similar to the ones of graduated programs in top universities, or to senior undergraduate students who want to pursue an advanced career in economics. This edition can also be of interest to economists working in government agencies or NGOs, as the material covers how to deal with day-to-day situations when designing, delivering and evaluating policies, and to economists advising or managing firms in developing countries.
All classes will take place in person, with full interactions with professors and classmates, allowing students to share their thoughts in a friendly environment. We are very looking forward to welcoming you in Lima!”
This course reviews some influential literature in micro-development economics to develop an analytical understanding of the challenges of global poverty and opportunities for research to inform improvements in human welfare. We will cover common empirical methods used in the literature (randomization, differences in differences, other creative uses of data) and spend some time discussing practical impact evaluation implementation tools (survey design, common implementation challenges and solutions, power calculations). Topics covered may include health, education, cash transfers, and private enterprise development. We will discuss policy applications and implementation at scale.
Dr. McCasland is assistant professor at Vancouver School of Economics, at the University of British Columbia. She obtained her PhD in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her research explores topics at the intersection of development and labor and has been organized into three groups: Education and Job Training, Underexplored Barriers to Small Firm Growth, and Women and Occupational Choice Constraints. Dr. McCasland research relies heavily on the design and implementation of large-scale field experiments, benefitting from collaboration with government and a close link to economic theory. She is affiliated with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)
This mini-course will employ both theoretical frameworks and empirical methods to explore the challenges associated with and potential solutions to obstacles in economic development that are intertwined with political factors. Our journey will commence with a historical perspective, delving into the roles of institutions, state capacity, and their influence on economic development. Subsequently, we will engage in a comprehensive discussion of the political economy surrounding public service delivery in developing nations. Moving forward, we will scrutinize shortcomings within the democratic process, encompassing issues such as corruption, clientelism, patronage, and the private appropriation of state resources. To conclude, we will investigate the ways in which democracy can be harnessed to improve development, backed by empirical evidence on various reform initiatives.
Dr. Ferraz is Professor of Economics at the Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia. He is also a part-time professor at the Department of Economics of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Dr. Ferraz currently serves as Scientific Director of J-PAL Latin America & Caribbean and as co-director of the Political Economy Network of LACEA and RIDGE. He is a Research Associate at the NBER, an honorary member of LACEA, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. Dr. Ferraz currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Development Economics, and the World Bank Economic Review. His academic research focuses on economic development, political economy, and public economics. In particular, Dr. Ferraz studies governance and accountability in developing countries and the consequences for politics and public service delivery.
According to Mark Garmaise, from UCLA, "data-guided decision making is now the widely acknowledged gold standard for making business choices. Implementing a data-guided approach requires rich information about the available options as well as a suite of technical tools for analysis. Crucially, however, it also requires a deep understanding of the business setting, for without this understanding the analysis will be at best shallow and at worst severely injudicious. In his 2022 book on the Peruvian firm, my esteemed intellectual collaborator and frequent coauthor Gabriel Natividad provides this fundamental context for anyone who wishes to understand the previously opaque nature of Peruvian firms. He has written an essential handbook detailing, across multiple dimensions, how Peruvian companies operate. (...) Effectively all major corporate decisions are covered by this book and the appropriate chapters offer valuable insights on difficult questions. These insights are useful not only to corporate managers themselves but also to investors, consultants and journalists who seek to understand and evaluate firms."
This course will present the key concepts, frameworks, and empirical findings that are relevant to understand the Peruvian business landscape using detailed information on over 8.2 million businesses operating in Peru between 2001 and 2020. The course companion is the book by Gabriel Natividad (in Spanish) recently published by Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Dr. Gabriel Natividad is a Professor of Economics at Universidad de Piura (Lima) and a member of the Lima School of Economics. He received his PhD at UCLA. His finance-related research has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and the Review of Corporate Finance Studies. His work also spans the fields of industrial economics and strategy, and has been published in the RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Industrial Economics, the Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategy Science. Born in Lima in 1977, he studied Economics at Universidad del Pacífico, where he won the Premio Robert Maes in 1995, 1997, 1998, and the Premio Robert Maes Especial in 1999. His book “La empresa en el Perú” has been recently by publsihed Fondo de Cultura Económica.
The 2024 Lima Summer School in Economics will take place at the Lima Campus of Universidad de Piura (UDEP), from February 14th to February 24th 2024.
UDEP Lima Campus is located at Calle Mártir José Olaya 196, in the Miraflores District.
Courses will be held on afternoons according to the following schedule:
Important:
In all courses the student must attend at least 80% of the sessions to be awarded an attendance certificate.
Program fees as a function of the total number of courses in which the participant registers:
| Course Name | General public | Undergrad and graduate students | Undergrad and graduate students from public universities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Only one course | US$ 500 | US$ 400 | US$ 250 |
| Any two courses | US$ 800 | US$ 640 | US$ 400 |
| Full Program (all three courses) | US$ 1000 | US$ 800 | US$ 500 |
Discounts:
A 10% discount over the amounts indicated above will be applied to those individuals who register by January 19, 2024.
UDEP alumni and participants of the previous Summer School editions are eligible for an additional 5% discount.
Corporative discounts are also available for those institutions interested in registering at least 5 participants. For more information about our institutional discounts, please contact us at summerschool@udep.edu.pe. Corporate discounts cannot be combined with any other discount.
Payment instructions will be provided to admitted candidates by the Summer School Admissions Office.
At the conclusion of the Summer School, participants will receive a certificate indicating the courses and the number of total hours attended.
Application for the 2024 Lima Summer School in Economics begins on December 1st, 2023.
The deadline to apply is February 12th, 2024. Please take into consideration that courses capacity is quite limited, and some courses may close way before this deadline.
To apply for the Summer School, prospective students should fill and submit the following online registration form. Candidates will be informed of their acceptance decision on a rolling basis.
Payment instructions will be provided to those admitted into the program.
Online Registration Form
LimaSE will award a limited number of Full and Partial Scholarships to a selected group of candidates for the 2024 Lima Summer School in Economics.
In addition to filling the Online Registration Form, individuals interested in being considered for the Summer Scholarship must also submit scanned copies of the following documentation before December 22th, 2023 to the email address summerschool@udep.edu.pe:
Scholarships will be awarded on a merit basis, and the Award Committee decisions will be based on the information provided by the candidates in their application documents.
Only those who apply to the full program (all three courses) will be considered for the LimaSE Summer Scholarship.
The Summer Scholarship only covers the tuition costs and doesn´t include travel or accommodation expenses. Participants from outside Lima should make their own arrangements in order to cover these costs.
In this video, Dr. David Green (PhD Standford), Professor at Vancouver School of Economics-UBC, talks about his experience teaching an 2020 LimaSE- VSE Summer School. Also, Sandra Buzinsky, from Canada, talks about her learning experience in Lima at our Summer School.
Our international students from Colombia and Argentina, share their experience at our Lima Summer School. Also Dr. Alejandro Arrieta, comments on the course on Economic Evaluation Methods in Health he taught during the 2020 summer school.
Since 2022, LimaSE and VSE have established a partnership with Econthaki, an organization dedicated to promoting diversity in economics and public policy academia across Latin America and the Caribbean. Through this partnership, participants in EconThaki programs can access full tuition scholarships to attend the Lima Summer School. For the year 2024, 10 participants from Econthaki programs will receive this benefit.
These scholarships are directly assigned by Econthaki.
To learn more about Econthaki and its programs, please visit https://econthaki.github.io/.