Gonzalo Ares de Parga Regalado

My research lies at the intersection of public economics and financial development, focusing on two main agendas. The first studies how banking policy and regulation shape competition, technology, and market structure, and how these changes affect financial inclusion and labor market outcomes. The second examines how migrant networks and remittances transmit economic shocks to households, labor markets, and financial systems in migrant-origin regions of developing countries.
 

During the summer of 2024, I was a Summer Researcher at the Directorate General of Economic Research (DGIE) of the Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico), under the supervision of Alex Pierre Rivadeneira Acosta. 

My empirical work draws on extensive administrative data from Mexico. I have constructed a comprehensive monthly bank–municipality panel covering the universe of banks operating in Mexico since 2010, documenting banking infrastructure and deposits nationwide. Through research agreements, I combine this panel with BANXICO’s universe of business loans, individual-level migration records (MCAS), and social security data on formal employment and wages (IMSS). I have also secured access to FIRA’s agricultural credit records through a research agreement. Together, these datasets enable me to study how banking markets and migration shape financial inclusion, credit allocation, and local economic outcomes.

I will be on the job market in AY. 2026-2027.

JOB MARKET PAPER: The Banking Channel of Social Transfers: Entry, Centralization, and Private Crowding Out with Alex P. Rivadeneira Acosta

Social programs can affect the real economy not only through recipients but also through the banks that deliver them. After roughly a decade of account-based delivery in Mexico, social-program payments could have become an important source of funding for the commercial banks distributing them. We test this banking channel using two natural experiments generated by the reform of Banco del Bienestar (BdB), a public social bank that does not lend and instead invests deposits in government securities. First, BdB's staggered, policy-mandated branch rollout identifies the effects of its entry. Second, during the rollout, the government centralized social-program payments in BdB, making the shift close to reverting these transfers to cash from the perspective of private credit creation. BdB entry expands account ownership and physical infrastructure, but deters commercial banks from expanding their branch networks and erodes their deposits and credit to micro firms, with these effects concentrated among the banks that previously managed social-program deposits. Centralization then causes these banks to lose up to 14.2% of their deposits, and the lost deposits pass through to a contraction in credit supply to firms. Together, the results reveal a banking channel of social transfers through which program deposits sustain private credit.

WORKING PAPERS

• “The Banking Channel of Social Transfers: Entry, Centralization, and Private Crowding Out.” with A. P. Rivadeneira Acosta.
• “Remittances as Insurance against Temperature Shocks” (October 2026) with D. Osuna-Gomez and L. Sarmiento.
• “The Transnational Effect of Temperature on Remittances” (October 2026) with D. Osuna-Gomez and L. Sarmiento.
• “The Effects of Declining US Immigration on Local Labor Markets in Mexico” (March 2026). Upjohn Institute Working Paper 26-424. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, with M. Prato.