Miguel Urquiola is Dean of Social Science and Professor of Economics at Columbia University.  He has chaired Columbia’s Department of Economics and its Committee on the Economics of Education. He is also a faculty member at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where he served as vice-dean.

Outside Columbia, Urquiola is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has held appointments at Cornell University, the World Bank, and the Bolivian Catholic University. He is a member of boards such as that of the the Social Science Research Council.

Urquiola’s research is on the Economics of Education. It focuses on understanding how schools and universities compete and how educational markets differ from other markets economists study. He has written numerous journal articles on these issues and a book on why American universities excel at research:  Markets, Minds, and Money.

Urquiola’s teaching includes Ph.D. and M.A. classes. He currently teaches “Principles of Economics” to Columbia undergraduates.