Victoria Vanasco is a Senior Researcher at CREI (Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional) in Barcelona, Spain, as well as Adjunct Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and and Affiliated Professor at Barcelona School of Economics.

As a newly tenured economist, she talks to Christopher Nash, Managing Director of INOMICS, about her career path. For readers currently working in academia with an ambition to achieve tenure, her experience offers valuable insight.

CN: You received tenure in 2023 at CREI, having worked there for around five years previously as a Junior Researcher. When did you decide that a tenured position was a career goal?
VV: Most research positions are of the tenure-track form, but this is not a promise of tenure, and typically if you do not get tenure by a given date you have to leave. For most people working in Academia, tenure is a career goal, as without it we have to leave the institution where we are (and sometimes the city or country), when our tenure is denied. Ideally, you get tenure at a place you like. I was lucky to get tenure at a place I REALLY like. The question was then ¨when to go up for tenure¨, and when professional activities started demanding a lot of my time (referee reports, participation in scientific committees, conference organization, seminar invitations, etc), I felt it was time.

"Fate was involved in the decision, as I did not get some jobs I would have found very attractive."

Victoria Vanasco

CN: You grew up in Argentina, before looking abroad to continue your academic journey. Was this a tough step to make? 
VV: It was hard to decide whether I wanted to pursue the PhD abroad vs look for a good job locally. Fate was involved in the decision, as I did not get some jobs I would have found very attractive. I decided to take it step by step. First, what do I need to do now to apply for a PhD in a year? A Masters in Economics, so I started with that. In the meantime, I got a job as a Junior Professional Associate at the World Bank in the Buenos Aires office. This position lasted only two years, as the World Bank encourages juniors to pursue their academic endeavours. That really helped. By the time I was done with my Masters and with my two years at the World Bank I was excited about pursuing a PhD. It was also hard to leave Argentina, but once again, step by step. I could always come back if I did not like it. I liked it so much, I never came back.

CN: What factors influenced your decision to continue your career in Spain, rather than the USA or Argentina, where you also have professional experience?
VV: In academia, at least in economics, for most of us, our job offers determine where we will live. My husband and I are both in academia, we work on related topics, and Barcelona was a place where we were both happy to live and where both of us have fulfilling job opportunities. 

CN: Having progressed from an undergraduate to postgraduate, and through researcher and assistant professor positions, which stage(s) of your education and career stand out in your memory as the most challenging?
VV: Academia is tough, and I was lucky enough to have only one really challenging moment in my career, which was the third year of the PhD. I was good at taking classes and exams, and then that was over, and I had to do research. How did you do research? I knew I liked theory, but how do you write a model? How do you choose an interesting question that you can actually answer? It was a lonely process: in my office, lots of frustration and staring at a white empty board. But then it happened, who knows how. In the middle of my fourth year I was already excited about what I was doing, somewhat knew what I was doing, and it has been exciting since then (disclaimer: doing research is always challenging, a strange mixture of frustration and excitement).

CN: ...And which stage was the most enjoyable?
VV: The most enjoyable was probably my job market, where I could present my research to a lot of people who were actually interested! I learned how nice it was to discuss the things you thought about in your office with the profession. It was really nice to know other people also found the problems I addressed interesting. Nothing is as intense as the job market in terms of visibility, but since then, the part I enjoy the most is being in my office alone thinking about the questions I care about, and then discussing my research with other researchers in the field (seminar, conferences, etc)

CN: Between 2013 and 2021 you were awarded no less than 7 prizes and 7 scholarships. To what extent do you think these recognitions of your skill have helped you advance your career?
VV: Wow, when you put it like that … I was not aware of this!  I was extremely lucky to have my first job at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where I was an Assistant Professor. This of course made a great impact in my career through two channels. First, it increased my visibility in the profession, and that is important when you are a young researcher (for example, it increases the chances of receiving awards). Second, and most importantly, I was able to spend the first four years of my career surrounded by the best academics working in my field, and I learned immensely from them.  

"My advice would be to pursue creative research, not prizes."

Victoria Vanasco

CN: …so how strongly would you advise students and young people just starting out in their career to pursue prizes?
VV: I never pursued prizes, and I do not think that is something you can do. Also, prizes do not really change much in your career; you feel good when receiving them, but in the end, in our profession, you are judged by the quality of the research you do. So my advice would be to pursue creative research, not prizes.

CN: In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the pressure on young academics to secure funding for their research, and by extension the insecurity around many junior academic positions. Did you experience this pressure? And what would your advice be to young scholars who are facing this?
VV: I never had to struggle for funding, mainly because I have never been at institutions that struggle for funding. Here in Europe grant applications are a central part of our academic life, so we learn how to apply to them, and some work and some don’t. Also, as I work on applied theory, all I need is pen and paper, so research funding is not a determinant of the research I can do (while it is for other types of research or fields of study).

CN: Thank you for your time!

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Victoria Vanasco - Short Biography (from CREI webpage):

Victoria Vanasco is a Researcher at the Centre de Recerca en Economia International (CREi). Before joining CREi, she was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She earned her PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2014, and she has a Masters in Finance and a B.A. in Economics from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, in Argentina, where she is from. Before earning her PhD, she spent two years as a Junior Professional Associate at the World Bank. 

Her research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics. Among other awards and grants, Victoria is the recipient of the 2018 Junior Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance awarded by Banque de France and Toulouse School of Economics, and of an ERC-Starting Grant for the period 2021-2026 for her project “INFOMAK: Information, Markets, and the Macroeconomy”. She is also a Research Fellow at CEPR, an Affiliated Professor at the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) and at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), an Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Intermediation, and a member of the Editorial Board at The Review of Economic Studies. She also serves in the governing bodies of the European Finance Association, the European Economic Association, the Spanish Finance Association, and the Finance Theory Group

Her research focuses on topics related to information asymmetries and their impact on financial markets and the real economy. She studies factors that lead to information and belief heterogeneity, and how these factors impact the incentives of market players to screen and monitor assets, with a focus on understanding how regulatory policies can increase liquidity and discipline in markets.

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