Felipe Barrera-Osorio is an economist working on the economics of education. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A. and a B.A. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. Between 2004 and 2006, Barrera-Osorio was the Deputy Director of the Colombian think tank Fedesarrollo. He moved to the United States in 2006 to work as a senior economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Since 2011, he has been an assistant professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Barrera-Osorio is part of the policy committee of the David Rockerfeller Center for Latin American Studies and affiliated with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard. Since 2007, he has been part of the executive committee of LACEA's Impact Evaluation Network, which he helped to create. In 2008, Barrera-Osorio was awarded the Juan Luis Londoño Medal for research in education. The recognition is given every other year to a Colombian economist under the age of 40. The aim of Felipe Barrera-Osorio's research is to determine how different educational incentives impact the learning outcomes of primary- and secondary school-aged children in different contexts and levels of education development. His research extends across countries on three continents: Africa, Asia and Latin America. Barrera-Osorio uses identification methods to find causal effects of educational programs in a large array of outcomes. He is currently evaluating several interventions that use random assignment, regression discontinuity designs, difference-in-difference, and instrumental variables approaches.

Degrees

• Ph.D., University of Maryland

• “Improving the Design of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Education Experiment in Colombia,” (with Marianne Bertrand, Leigh L. Linden and Francisco Perez), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 3(2), pages 167-95, 2011 (2011)
• Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Mauricio Olivera & Carlos Ospino, 2009. "Does Society Win or Lose as a Result of Privatization? The Case of Water Sector Privatization in Colombia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(304), pages 649-674, October. (2009)
• Cardenas, Mauricio & Barrera, Felipe, 1997. "On the effectiveness of capital controls: The experience of Colombia during the 1990s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 27-57, October. (1997)

• Impact Evaluation Network, LACEA (2008-present)

• A-822   The Consequences of Educational Policy Interventions in Developing Countries: Evidence from Recent Impact Evaluations (Spring 2013)
• S-413   Doctoral Research Practicum: Using Quantitative Methods to Make Causal Inferences about the Consequences of Educational Initiatives and Policies (Yearlong 2012 - 2013)

• Curriculum Vitae (pdf)