IBC Keynote Speaker Nov. 9 @ TAMIU Explores Effects of Violence on Mexican Economy

An expert on México’s subnational economy, citizen security and rule of law will be the next featured speaker at the International Bank of Commerce 2016-2017 Keynote Speaker Series at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. in the TAMIU Student Center Ballroom.

Admission is free and open to the public.

A reception will start at 6:30 p.m. Free translation services, English to Spanish, will be available.

The lecture series is presented by the TAMIU A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade and sponsored by IBC Bank.

Dr. Viridiana Ríos, global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., will explore the mechanisms under which violence, criminal activity and the lack of rule of law reduce economic activity in her presentation, “The Economic Impacts of Violence and Crime in México.”

Dr. Ríos will explain how labor productivity, economic growth and employment generation have been affected by changes in conflict intensity, particularly as a result of México's recent escalation in criminal violence. She will also give insight as to whether productivity is reduced the most for firms whose inputs are related to U.S. markets and for individuals working in the services sector.

Ríos earned a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and before joining the Wilson Center, was the director of a start-up think tank specializing in translating research to the language of media and government officials.

Her work has been published in The New York Times and The Washington Post. In 2014, she was honored with the Leonard D. White Award from the American Political Science Association, which recognizes the best doctoral dissertation written in the last two years.

For more information, contact Amy Palacios, associate director, Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, at 326.2820 or amy@tamiu.edu or visit offices in Western Hemispheric Trade Center, room 221.

Additional information is available at  https://www.facebook.com/tamiucswht.