About the BBVA Economic Research Department

BBVA’s Economic Research Department is structured into four major units, headed up by José Luis Escrivá, designed to adapt our economic analysis to the needs of an increasingly international banking group and to respond to the challenge of assessing increasingly globalized economies.

The four units are described below:

- The goal of the Spain and Europe Unit, where Rafael Doménech  is chief economist, is to extend analysis of the European economy and to study the Spanish economy in what is an increasingly relevant European context. The BBVA Research Department has been a pioneer in analysis of the Spanish economy and continuing this tradition is one of its priorities.The best way of achieving this is to conduct research that reflects Spain's growing integration within Europe.This Unit comprises:

·        The Spain Unitheaded up by Miguel Cardoso, whose main job is to focus on the overall structure of the Spanish economy and its main economic sectors of interest to the BBVA Group.The unit’s publications include“Spain Watch”, “Catalonia Watch” and “Andalusia Watch”.

·       The Europe Unit, headed up by Miguel Jiménez, which is responsible for analysis of the Euro zone, with particular emphasis on the European Central Bank's monetary policy.Noteworthy publications by this unit include“Europe Watch” and the reports monitoring the ECB.

The Mexico and United States Unit is headed up from Mexico City by Jorge Sicilia.The aim of this unit is to conductan exhaustive monitoring of both countries and their interrelation, placing particular emphasis on the structural and cyclical analysis of both economies, including regional and sector analysis as well as monetary policy developments.

This unit comprises:

·       The United States Unit, headed up by Nathaniel Karp in Houston. It focuses its research on analysis of the U.S. economy and Federal Reserve monetary policy, with particular attention to the regional perspective, analysis of the different sectors, particularly the real estate market and the banking sector, working together with the Economic and Financial Scenarios Unit.Noteworthy publications include “Fed Watch” and “Economic Watch”, which analyze in depth a number of economic subjects, as well as "observatories” and publications such as “U.S. Regional Watch”, which analyzes U.S. state economies, focusing on the states where BBVA is present.

·       The Mexico Unit, headed up by Adolfo Albo from Mexico City, monitors the country's economy globally.It provides an in-depth analysis by sector and region, with particular focus on the banking and real estate sectors, and on the analysis of pensions and immigration.Its coverage of these topics analyzes the current situation and activity, savings and financing forecasts, as well as studies of structural aspects on which it bases its proposals for improving the regulatory framework. Publications include “Mexico Real Estate Watch”, “Regional Sector Watch” and the recent “Mexico Migration Watch”, as well as occasional ad-hoc reports.

·       Second, the Mexico Macroeconomic Analysis Unit, headed up by Julián Cubero, deals with monitoring, analysis and forecasts of macroeconomic aspects of the Mexican economy, both current and structural, its variables in terms of activity, demand and prices, and financial data such as interest rates and the exchange rate.It publishes various situation reports and monetary policy analysis, as well as "Mexico Watch", which regularly includes an analysis of the country’s situation and the economic perspectives.

- The Economic and Financial Scenarios Unit, whose chief economist is Mayte Ledo, carries out a consistent analysis of real and financial variables, modeling the probability of various scenarios.It integrates the inputs from the different geographical areas into a coherent whole.This unit comprises:

·       The Sectorial Analysis Unit, headed up by Ana Rubio. The unit analyses the financial, real estate and consumer sectors.Its key publications are“Real Estate Watch” and “Consumption Watch”.

·       The Financial Scenarios Unit, led by Daniel Navia, generates short and medium-term forecasts for a broad range of financial variables. This provides an overall coherency to the macroeconomic information from the various units in the Economic Research Department.These scenarios are used as a reference for several of the BBVA Group activities.The unit also undertakes interdisciplinary coordination of research work.

·       The Quantitative Analysis and Modeling Unit, led by Giovanni di Placido, provides the other areas with methodological support.It develops econometric models for numerous variables and geographical areas, and analyses their predictive performance. Its goal is to build globally consistent models that help to understand how economies behave, make predictions and analyze the impact of economic shocks.

·        The Global Trends Unit, headed by David Tuesta, prepares studies on the long-term impact of changes in variables such as energy supply, climate change, the ageing population and economic globalization. Based on these, it analyzes the possible scenarios towards which economic activity is headed and what risks and opportunities may emerge over the medium term horizon.Its main publications are “Global Highlights” and “Global Trends”.The unit also analyzes the viability of pension systems, studies reforms as they are introduced and suggests possible future schemes based on demographic and economic trends.It has a team of economists specialized in pensions, who work in coordination with BBVA's Pensions and Insurance Americas Unit.

- The Emerging Economies Unit, headed by Alicia García Herrero, aims to consolidate the research carried out by the Economic Research Department in emerging economies, with particular emphasis on South America and Asia, followed in importance by the emerging regions of Europe and, finally, the Middle East.This unit comprises:

·       The South America Sub-Unit, which aims to consolidate the analysis carried out by the Economic Research Department on the South American economies by extending its cross-regional analysis.This sub-unit is made up of the Economic Research Departments of Argentina (chief economist: Gloria Sorensen), Colombia (chief economist: Juana Téllez), Chile (chief economist: Alejandro Puente), Peru (chief economist: Hugo Perea) and Venezuela (chief economist: Oswaldo López), coordinated out of Chile by Joaquín Vial.

·       The Asia Sub-Unit, with a team of economists based in Hong-Kong and Shanghai, in which Li-Gang Liu is chief economist for China and Ya Lan Liu is chief economist for the rest of Asia.

·       The Madrid Sub-Unit, headed up by Sonsoles Castillo. It coordinates the cross-market analysis of emerging economies, as well as monitoring the leading emerging economies of Europe and the Middle East.The unit also monitors the commodities markets with the support of experts from the Economic Research Department.

The main publications issued by the Emerging Economies Unit are: "Latin Watch", "Financial System Latin Watch", "China Watch", real-estate reports for South American countries and China and Country Reports for the main emerging economies, drawn up in close collaboration with the Global Trends Unit.