Antonio Merlo is the George A. Peterkin Professor and department chair of economics at Rice University. He was previously the Lawrence R. Klein Professor of Economics and the Director of the Penn Institute for Economic Research (PIER) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Research Fellow of CEPR and CESifo and a Research Associate of NBER. Before joining the Economics faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Merlo taught at the University of Minnesota and New York University.