I was born in Spain in 1975 to Chilean parents. I am the youngest of five children. Partly because I was born there I received this very Spanish name, which sometimes causes trouble for non-Spanish speakers. At some point we moved back to Chile where I attended a catholic school and then a catholic university for my undergraduate studies. In 2000 I started a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard. I quickly drifted towards finance. After graduating in 2004 and working for the Federal Reserve for a couple of years, I returned to Chile. Currently, I am an associate professor (with tenure) at the business school of the Catholic University of Chile (same place where I got my undergraduate degree). I live in Santiago with my wife and seven children.
My research is mostly empirical. I am fascinated by data and finding the right empirical strategy for the task at hand. My thesis dealt with the impact of financial frictions on firms during recessions. More recently I have studied topics in corporate finance such as ownership structures and equity financing (e.g., IPOs). I am interested in asset pricing too, with a bent towards behavioral finance (academic website here). I guess I have learned one or two tricks in the more than 15 years that I have been in the “business” of publishing papers. I still find it very challenging, specially so at the top academic journals.
I was born into a traditional catholic family, where going to mass every Sunday morning and, more broadly speaking, engaging in various religious activities was a natural thing to do. I draw frequent inspiration from San Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, who has taught me how to better integrate the spiritual and professional aspects of life.
Contact: flarraic@uc.cl