Gerard Padro i Miquel is a Professor of Economics and Political Science at Yale University, where he is also the Director of the Leitner Program of International and Comparative Political Economy. He is interested in the interplay between politics and economics as a barrier for development with a focus on civil conflict and on the politics of non-democratic regimes. His previous work has been published at the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies and the Quarterly Journal of Political Science among others.