Miguel Ángel Santos is Dean of the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, where he teaches graduate courses on economic growth and development. His research and teaching focus on economic development, growth diagnostics, productive diversification, economic complexity, and the design and implementation of development policy.
Before joining Tecnológico de Monterrey, Miguel Angel spent a decade at Harvard University’s Growth Lab, where he served as Senior Research Fellow and later as Director of Applied Research. From 2021 to 2023, he led the Growth Lab’s first international expansion as Director of the Harvard-LSE Growth Co-Lab at the London School of Economics. Throughout this period, he led multidisciplinary research teams working directly with national and subnational governments across Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, using data-intensive approaches to identify constraints to economic growth, opportunities for productive diversification, and policies to promote inclusive and sustainable development. His applied research has included work in countries such as Namibia, Tanzania, Senegal, Jordan, Albania, Ukraine, Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela.
Santos has taught development economics and public policy at several leading universities. He was an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, where he co-taught Development Policy Strategy with Ricardo Hausmann; a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics School of Public Policy; and a Visiting Professor at IE School of Global and Public Affairs. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago since 2020.
His research has been published in the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Business Research, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Economía, and other academic outlets. He is also the co-author of three books in Cambridge University Press’s Elements in Development Economics series, addressing human capital constraints, public-private collaboration for productive diversification, and the economic effects of sanctions on Venezuela.
Santos holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Barcelona, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, and master’s degrees in Economics and International Trade from Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Course offered:
Complexity Seminar, Strategies for Economic Growth
