Professor Urzua received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2007 and his BA from the University of Chile in 2001. He is Research Associate at the NBER and a Research Fellow at IZA. His research has focused on the role of cognitive and noncognitive abilities, and uncertainty as determinants of schooling decisions, labor market outcomes and social behavior. His research in econometrics is mainly concerned with the estimation of selection models with unobserved heterogeneity. Recently, he has analyzed the effects of early endowments on academic and labor market outcomes. His research agenda includes the evaluation of social programs in developing economies. He teaches in the area of Labor Economics and Econometrics.

Urzua was an event speaker at the Dialogue.