Expertise: Urban Economics; Labor Economics; Economic Geography; Urban Migration

Jorge de la Roca is an Assistant Professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public of Policy and Research Director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. His research interests include urban economics, labor economics and economic geography. His research focuses on understanding the benefits of working in big cities and studying urban migration across cities of different sizes, where he has published articles in the Review of Economic Studies and the Journal of Urban Economics. He has also studied the consequences of racial segregation on minorities in the United States, co-authoring articles on the subject in Regional Science and Urban Economics and Journal of Housing Economics. He has also published on wage cyclicality in SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association.

Dr. de la Roca earned his doctorate and master’s in Economics at CEMFI in Spain and his Bachelor Degree at Universidad del Pacífico in Peru. Before joining the Price School, he was a research fellow at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. He has also worked at Harvard University’s Center for International Development, the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Group for the Analysis of Development in Lima, Peru. He has recently received international recognition for his research and was awarded the prestigious August-Lösch prize in regional science.