MPA-EPM (PEPM) Faculty Spotlight: Guillermo Mondino

Guillermo Mondino is an Adjunct professor at Columbia SIPA. He is also a consultant to financial institutions and multilateral policy institutions. Previously, he was the Chief Economist and Strategist at Mogador Capital Management and a Managing Director and Head of Emerging Markets Economics and Strategy Research at Citi from 2011-2016. From 2008-2011 he was the Head of Emerging Markets Strategy at Barclays Capital where he also held the role of Head of Latin America Research. From 2004-2008, he was the head of Emerging Markets research at Lehman Brothers. Before joining Wall Street, he had ample experience in the policy world where he held roles in the Ministry of the Economy in Argentina, having had responsibilities as Secretary of Finance, of Economic Policy, and as Chief of the Cabinet of Advisors. He was the director of IERAL de Fundación Mediterránea, a think-tank in Argentina, where he advised a number of countries undergoing serious economic distress (Ecuador, Ukraine, Indonesia, among others). He has held academic positions at Yale University, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Di Tella and San Andres universities in Argentina. Guillermo holds a PHD in economics from Yale University.  

What led you to work in the economic policy management sector/in emerging market strategies?

I am originally from Argentina, a country with immense economic challenges. I started studying economics motivated by the desire to try to address some of those issues. When in grad school, I was drawn to the field of the new political macroeconomics and paid much attention to policy challenges and implementation. Soon after starting a career in academia, I had the chance to be involved in the provision of actual policy advice which I found to be more exciting than writing papers. That is why I chose to jump to a thinktank doing tons of policy advice. In particular, I became an expert in economic crises and became a sort of economic fire-fighter. I’ve seen economic fires from nearby, from within and from the financial market’s perspective.  

Who or what had the greatest influence on your own education/career path?

In my early years as an economist, I was a disciple of Nobel Laureate James Tobin, somebody that, to this day, I still revere. However, while Tobin was very much interested in economic policy, his focus was much more on issues having to do with a lack of aggregate demand. I was much more interested in topics such as very high inflation stabilization, sovereign overborrowing and financial market crises. The more I read, the more I became influenced by the economic thinking of SIPA’s Guillermo Calvo and of a group of Italian economists that were pushing the frontier of the new political economy.

How would you describe your teaching style?

I like my students to learn to think in a disciplined way. For that, I like to develop simple or streamlined models which we then use to discuss a myriad of economic issues. Looking at data and circumstances, without the structure of a model, provides useless inferences. For this reason, I like to motivate my lectures with real world problems, develop simplified models and then actively engage in discussions. My hope is that my students, as policymakers, will be able to engage in informed and properly framed discussion instead of purely ideological prejudice. 

What do you enjoy most about your line of work? What is the most challenging element about it?

I have conducted academic research, provided policy advice, implemented policies and have looked at policy choices from a financial market perspective. I’ve enjoyed all these professional activities and think that all of them are highly rewarding. As an example, in my latest incarnation, I look at the opportunities that policy choices can have on asset prices and the opportunities that they create for financial investors. It is a different way of thinking about policies. Suddenly, it is less about whether a policy is right or wrong, and much more about how its consequences will affect asset prices (up or down) and how should an investor position. Looking at policies this way can be fascinating but requires an important change from the typical policymaker mindset.

What key experiences from your own professional history do you bring to your course(s)?

Students in my classes can expect to find a blend of perspectives. At times, we will look at issues from a policymaker perspective, others we will think about them from a financial angle. Throughout the class, I try to tell “war-stories” to motivate the discussion and hope my students enjoy the anecdotes as a way of lightening the mood that dry models and data can oftentimes create.

In your opinion, what sets the PEPM program apart from other graduate programs?

There are many graduate programs in economics to choose from. PEPM has a unique feature which is to cover economic theory from an actual policy perspective. Basically, the theories discussed here are those that are fundamental to produce properly structured policy discussions. We choose topics and the level of discussions in such a way that students ought to be able to immediately translate those ideas into concrete policy analysis.

What advice would you give to current students looking to make an impact in the world of economic policy management?

There is a right and wrong way of conducting and analyzing economic policy. In my opinion, policy ought to be data driven and, to be able to interpret that data properly, a solid grounding in economic models is needed. However, models are a simplification of reality and many important features are oftentimes overlooked. A good policymaker knows how to use economics as a framework to analyze data and alternative policy proposals. While there is “art” in policymaking, good policies also require a solid dose of structured analysis.