Me as a Rolling Stone: Thoughts of a Perpetual Student
Julio Garín, the Peter K. Barker ’70 P’01 Associate Professor of Economics and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College, joined the CMC faculty in 2017. He holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Universidad ORT, Uruguay.
Professor Garín has been widely published in academic journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics; the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics; Journal of Money, Credit and Banking; and European Economic Review, and has been a visiting scholar of several central banks, including the Federal Reserve.
He is particularly interested in understanding the role of frictions and market imperfections, measuring well-being, and the extent to which policy interventions may help to ameliorate undesirable outcomes. “In terms of labels, I have worked in the areas of monetary and fiscal policy, financial frictions, labor markets, and identifying the role of expectations on a variety of economic outcomes. Digging deeper, I am interested in the elusive task of understanding human behavior.”
Professor Garín grew up Cuaró, a neighborhood of Rivera, a city split between Uruguay and Brazil. “That place and their people, together with the parents I had and the ones I did not, gave me both roots and wings,” he shared.
“The role of an economist may not seem like a romantic task—or the role of a social scientist for that matter—but I argue that, when honestly pursued, provides extraordinary tools for creating a meaningful chronicle of human behavior and is crucial for piercing the veil of ignorance that conceals true understanding and prevents genuine empathy,” he said.