Victor Funes-Leal

Victor Funes-Leal

PhD candidate in Agricultural and Consumer Economics

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

I am an applied microeconomist, and my research is related to the impact of technological innovations in Developed and Developing countries. I will receive my Ph.D. in Agricultural and Consumer Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Spring 2024.

My current work investigates the consequences of introducing genomic testing in the American dairy genetics market. I use matching and differences-in-differences methods to construct a set of synthetic lines to estimate the effect of genomic selection. My research on this topic fills a critical gap in the literature on the economic analysis of animal genetics markets; so far, Economists have paid little attention to using genetic traits and pedigree as explanatory factors for market outcomes.

My other work has investigated topics such as hedonic pricing and climate adaptation. In another article, I study the introduction of crossbreeds to adapt cattle to climate change and how to tease out patterns of adoption for genetic traits by cattle ranchers in northern Argentina. I have also studied how farmers adapt to extreme weather events in Northern India by analyzing their response to floods, the likelihood of reporting such events, and how they impact farmers’ welfare using flood extent data from NASA and ground-level data from a Randomized Controlled Trial.

I am on the 2023-2024 Job Market.

My Job Market paper can be found here.

My CV can be found here.

Interests

  • Production Economics
  • Applied Econometrics
  • Development Economics

Education

  • PhD in Agricultural and Consumer Economics, 2024 (Expected)

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • MS in Applied Statistics, 2023

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • MA in Economics, 2015

    National University of La Plata

  • BA in Economics, 2007

    National University of Tucuman

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