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Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct Professor and Faculty Affiliate (Rice Family Professor, 2022-2025)
Francisco Rodríguez is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and an adjunct professor and faculty affiliate at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, where he was the Rice Family Professor from 2022 to 2025. His research covers international economics, political economy, the effects of economic sanctions and the economics of Venezuela. He has written four books, most recently The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), and more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in journals including the American Economic Journal and the Journal of Economic Growth. Before that he was Chief Andean Economist at Bank of America, head of the research team at the UN Human Development Report Office, and head of economic and financial advisory at Venezuela's National Assembly. He has taught at the University of Maryland, Wesleyan University and IESA. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University.
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International Economics
Political Economy
Economic Sanctions
Venezuela and Latin America
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Economic and Policy Research
The Elgar Companion to the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean (editor). Edward Elgar. Forthcoming, 2025.
The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020. University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming, 2025.
Cooperative Responses to Venezuela's Crisis: A Roadmap for Negotiations (with Giancarlo Bravo and Guillermo Guerrero), Oil for Venezuela, 2023.
Venezuela Before Chí¡vez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse. (co-edited with Ricardo Hausmann), Penn State University Press, 2013.
“On Unfounded Claims of Electoral Fraud.” (with Dorothy Kronick and Nicolás Idrobo), World Development, 198, February 2026
“Effects of International Sanctions on Age-Specific Mortality: A Cross-National Panel Data Analysis,” (with Silvio Rendón and Mark Weisbrot), The Lancet Global Health, August 2025, 13(8): e1358 - e1366.
“Political Growth Collapses,” (with Patrick Imam), Public Choice, 205:183-217, October 2025.
“The Economic Determinants of Venezuela’s Hunger Crisis,” Latin American Perspectives, 52(4), 157-189, July 2025.
“The Global Seigniorage Duopoly,” Global Policy 16(2): 319-328, May 2025.
"How Clientelism Works: Evidence from the Barinas Special Election," World Development, 184, December 2024.
"How Economic Sanctions Affect Human Development: Evidence and Policy Implications," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 25(3), August 2024.
"The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions," Journal of Economic Studies, 51(4): 942-963, May 2024.
"Sanctions and Oil Production: Evidence from Venezuela's Orinoco Basin," Latin American Economic Review 31(6), September 2022.
"Do Shifts in Late-Counted Votes Signal Fraud? Evidence from Bolivia," with Dorothy Kronick and Nicolí¡s Idrobo, Journal of Politics 84(4), October 2022.
"Monotone Comparative Statics in the Calvert-Wittman Model," with Eduardo Zambrano, Economic Theory Bulletin, 10:105-116, 2022.
"Toward Sustainable Human Development in Venezuela: Diagnosis, Challenges and Economic Strategy," (with Guillermo Guerrero), Revista Tempo Do Mundo, 23:285-344, December 2020.
"Cleaning up the kitchen sink: Specification tests and average derivative estimators for growth econometrics," (with Cameron Shelton) Journal of Macroeconomics 38B:260-73, December 2013.
"The Declining Labor Share of Income," (with Arjun Jayadev) Journal of Globalization and Development 3(2):1-18, March 2013.
"Caught in a Poverty Trap? Testing for Single vs. Multiple Equilibrium Models of Growth," (with Cameron Shelton) Journal of Globalization and Development 3(2):1-25, March 2013.
"The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," (with Jeni Klugman and Hyung-Jin Choi), Journal of Economic Inequality, 9(2): 249-288, June 2011.
"The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta," (with Edward Miguel, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Daniel Ortega), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3 (April 2011): 196-214.
"Is there a Numbers vs. Rights Trade-Off in Immigration Policy? What the Data Say," (with Mathew Cummins), Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 11(2), July 2010.
"Anarchy, State, and Dystopia: Venezuelan Economic Institutions before the Advent of Oil," (with Adam J. Gomolin), Bulletin of Latin American Research 28(1), January 2009, pp. 102-21.
"Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Robinson Campaign," (with Daniel Ortega), Economic Development and Cultural Change, 57(1) October 2008, pp. 1-30 (lead article).
"The Anarchy of Numbers: Understanding the Evidence on Venezuelan Economic Growth," Canadian Journal of Development Studies XXVII(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, Vol. 16 (November), 2004.
"Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence" (with Dani Rodrik), NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000.
"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.
Global Economic Challenges
Economic Policymaking
Sanctions, Economic Statecraft, and Political Change
Ph.D., Economics, Harvard University, 1998
B.A., Economics (Economista), Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 1992
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