Javier Mejia in Colombia

A native of Colombia, Javier Mejia is an economist whose work focuses on the intersection between social networks and economic history. His interests extend to entrepreneurship and political economy, with a geographical specialty in Latin America and the Middle East. He received a PhD in Economics from Bogotá’s Los Andes University; he has been a postdoctoral associate and lecturer at New York University–Abu Dhabi and a visiting scholar at the University of Bordeaux.

Most of Javier’s research explores how social interactions have shaped the economy long term. He brings together theoretical and empirical methods from economics and conceptual tools from anthropology to the study of history. This has led him to explore an extensive set of historical objects. He has studied entrepreneurs in Colombia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industrial elites in Morocco in the late 20th century, tribal societies in North Africa in the 19th century, early Muslim communities in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries, and political elites in Colombia and the United States in the early 19th century.

Javier has teaching experience in multicultural environments, having taught at universities in Latin America, the United States, and the Middle East. He has taught courses on economic growth, economic history, and economic theory. At Stanford, his courses jointly provide an overview of economic evolution from a global history and moral philosophy perspective.

Javier is a regular contributor to different news outlets. Currently, he is a Forbes Magazine op-ed columnist. He also serves as the host ofThe Economic and Political History Podcast andThe Civic Agora. During our program, Javier will address topics including Colombia’s singularity in Latin America and its equilibrium between stability and violence, the corporate battle for Colombia’s Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño, the forces behind the history of Colombian urban structure and the Colombian national character.

• PhD, Los Andes University, Economics (2018)

• MA, Los Andes University, Economics (2016)

• BA, Universidad de Antioquia, Economics (2012)