Barcelona School of Economics


The Barcelona School of Economics is an institute for research and graduate education in economics, finance, data science, and the social sciences located in Barcelona, Spain. It was founded as a partnership among four academic units: Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, together with the research centers CREI and IAE-CSIC. In research-based rankings, BSE is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading economics institutions, while UPF is ranked among the top departments in Europe in Economics & Econometrics. BSE was founded in 2006 by economist and microeconomic theorist Andreu Mas-Colell.
BSE offers master’s programs and is part of a wider doctoral training community through two Economics PhD programs co-organized with UPF and UAB, respectively. Master’s degrees are awarded by the respective universities; the largest program, the Master’s Degree in Economics, is awarded by Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
BSE maintains a Scientific Council to provide strategic guidance with respect to academic programs and research activities. Notable members of BSE’s Scientific Council have included Nobel laureates Philippe Aghion, Daron Acemoglu, Kenneth Arrow, and Robert Solow, among others.
The is a major annual conference where economists present their latest work across dozens of topics in Economics research.
The Calvó-Armengol International Prize is awarded every two years by BSE and the Government of Andorra to a researcher in Economics or social sciences who is not older than 40 years old for significant contributions to the theory and comprehension of the mechanisms of social interaction.
In addition to two economics PhD programs through UPF and UAB, BSE's educational offerings include master's degrees, summer schools, executive education courses, and in-company training. The Barcelona School of Economics is accredited by the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency.
WWW barcelonagse.eu

History

Established as the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, the institution was legally recognized by the Government of Catalonia in October 2006 as a foundation dedicated to higher education.
The School was created with the objective to foster scientific cooperation between four existing academic and research units in Barcelona:

Name change

The institution changed its name to Barcelona School of Economics in 2021.

Mission

The Barcelona School of Economics aims to promote the creation and transmission of frontier knowledge in Economics and related disciplines, by consolidating Barcelona as a world-class center of research, academic education, and professional training with the ultimate goals of informing policy and promoting economic and social wellbeing.

Board of Trustees

BSE's Board of Trustees includes both private and public institutions, as well as distinguished academics who serve in a personal capacity.

Scientific Council

The BSE Scientific Council is a group of distinguished economists who provide strategic guidance to BSE's leadership team.
Members meet in Barcelona periodically to analyze BSE education programs, research initiatives, and institutional development.
The members are distinguished international economists including Nobel Laureates, Clarivate Citation Laureates, Fellows of the Econometric Society, and Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Chair of the BSE Scientific Council
The first chair of the Scientific Council was Hugo Sonnenschein, President Emeritus of the University of Chicago, who held the position from 2008 until 2021.
The current chair is Matthew O. Jackson, Professor of Economics at Stanford University.
Current Members of the Barcelona School of Economics Scientific Council

Research

One of BSE's main objectives is to make Barcelona a leading community in Economics research worldwide.

Research rankings

The Barcelona School of Economics research community constitutes one of the leading clusters of economics research in Europe. It has been ranked by RePEc among the top 15 of Economics Departments in the world, the top 10 in Europe, and as the best in Spain.

Severo Ochoa Research Excellence accreditations

In 2011, BSE was distinguished as one of only eight Centers of Research Excellence with an international impact in the framework of the Severo Ochoa Research Excellence Program, which promotes frontier research and distinguish those institutions that are defining the global scientific debate.
BSE is the only center focused on Economics and the social sciences to receive the Severo Ochoa accreditation in all four editions of the program

Research areas

Faculty

Affiliated professors

Affiliated Professors of the Barcelona School of Economics are tenured or tenure-track faculty members from the BSE academic units.
Among the affiliated professors there are Fellows of the Econometric Society, Fellows of the European Economic Association, Research Fellows of the Centre for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), and Research Fellows of CESifo. They publish in the leading journals of Economics and many of the journals of the different subfields of the discipline. They also serve as coeditors and associate editors of these journals.
At present there are around 150 BSE Affiliated Professors, some of whom have been appointed as BSE Research Professors by the Board of Trustees in order to attract, retain, and recognize top scientists in the BSE research community:

Campuses

The Barcelona School of Economics has two campuses: