Expertise
Verónica Escudero is a PhD economist with over 15 years of experience specializing in the microeconometric analysis of labor market and social policies. As a Senior Economist and Head of the Skills, ALMPs and Policy Evaluation Unit of the International Labour Organization's Research Department, she has established herself as a leader in the field. Dr. Escudero's commitment to continued professional development and her expertise in the field of development economics was demonstrated by her recent tenure as a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California Berkeley from 2021 to 2023.
Prior to joining the ILO, Dr. Escudero served as a Research Officer at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva and an Analyst at the Macroeconomic and Financial Consulting firm Multienlace in her home country, Ecuador. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Paris School of Economics and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), an MSc. in International Economics from the University Pierre-Mendès France, and an Economist degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador.
Verónica Escudero's research is divided into two broad policy-relevant topics: the effectiveness of labour market policies and the role of skills in promoting better job patterns. Within the first topic, her research aims to identify effective active labour market and social protection policies to enhance job quality and social conditions, with views to contributing to national policy formulation. She is interested in understanding what design and delivery characteristics drive effective measures and identifying the complementarities between policies that can enhance their beneficial effect.
Recently, Dr. Escudero has been focused on work-to-work transitions and skills-dynamics. Within this second topic, she explores the skills necessary for effective transitions to decent work in low- and middle-income countries, using online data on vacancies and applications to labour portals. Her research investigates how to measure skills using online data from job portals; what skills and skills bundles can foster transitions to better work, and how the changing demand for skills responds to global shocks and transformations. Her work has covered a wide geographical range, but her latest projects have an emerging and developing country focus.
Dr. Escudero's technical work is regularly published in highly ranked academic journals such as World Development and The Journal of Development Studies. She values the importance of generating evidence-based policy recommendations that can inform and improve national policy formulation through ILO books and reports. In addition, her research has also featured in several media outlets and policy briefings, including Vox EU, Vox LACEA and ILO Policy Briefs.