I am Full Professor of Economic History at the Department of Economic History of University of Murcia. I hold a PhD in Economic History from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2004) and MA in Population and Migrations (2001).
I was awarded pre and postdoctoral scholarships from public institutions (Xunta de Galicia 1999-2000; FPU 2000-05; Postdoctoral grant 2005-06, Castillejo Young Researchers Grant 2011, Postdoctoral I3 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona) and private entities (Caixa Galicia 1999; CajaMurcia 2012, Harvard Business School, 2019). I was a postdoc at University of Florence, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and Yale University, and a visiting fellow at the Economic Growth Center in Yale (2007-2018), where I also obtained the prestigious Thomas K. McCraw Fellowship in U.S. business history from Harvard Business School (2019).
I have worked as a lecturer at University of Santiago de Compostela, Universida Autónoma de Barcelona, York University (teaching assistant) and Universidad de Murcia (several cathegories: assistant prof., associate prof. (on tenure track and tenure track)). I have been PI of 2 research projects of the National I+D+i Plan, 2 research projects funded by the Fundación Seneca Foundation-Agencia Regional de Ciencias y Tecnología de Murcia, 1 research project funded by the Secretariat of the Presidency-Xunta de Galicia and 1 research contract funded by the Departament de Traball-Generalitat de Catalunya. Overall I participated as a researcher and a collaborator in more than a dozen national and international projects. At present I am also a Vice-Chair of the COST Action 18110 Underground for Value (2019-23), an interdisciplinary research network focused on the conservation of the underground heritage and the use of underground space in urban and rural areas for regeneration policies.
I am the author of more than 200 scientific contributions (journal articles, books, chapters and presentations at national and international conferences). My research lines include economic thought, cooperativism, history of commercial companies, and business history with a gender perspective. The research project on the history of commercial companies developed with Tim Guinnane (Yale) since2007 connected with an original strand of research promoted by a group of leading international such as Noemi Lamoreaux (Yale), Ron Harris (Tel Aviv) and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (UCLA) who questioned the absolute dominance of the joint-stock company in the development of modern capitalism and underlined the vitality of other intermediate legal forms, such as the Limited Liability Company. This allowed me to make original contributions on the history of corporate legal forms in Spain, a topic never explored.
More recently I have studied the presence of women as partners in commercial companies and investors in the capital markets. Based on a unique and original database containing microdata about the founders of Spanish mercantile companies (1886-1936), I found that, contrary to received wisdom, Spanish women played an active and visible role in business activities at the beginning of the 20th century a fact largely ignored by the conventional historiography.
In the academic year 2023-24 I will benefit from a Scholarship for Requalification of the Spanish University System (2021-23) financed by the Ministry of Universities, Next Generation EU Funds and the Plan of Recovery,Transformation and Resilience, which will allow me to further develop my research at the IDEGA-Institute of Studies and Development of Galicia (University of Santiago de Compostela).
Spain