Harris Welcomes New Faculty for 2024-2025 Academic Year

The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy has welcomed two new tenure-track assistant professors to its roster of world-class faculty members. Hyuk-soo Kwon, an energy economist, and Álvaro Delgado-Vega, a political economist, have joined the school effective July 1, 2024. 

“I’m delighted that Hyuk-soo and Álvaro, both creative, insightful, and highly rigorous researchers and educators, have decided to join the University of Chicago’s distinguished community of scholars,” said Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, dean and Sydney Stein Professor at Harris Public Policy. “They are making fundamental contributions to our understanding of energy policy and political economy with implications for both scholarly debate and important policy problems. I look forward to working with them both as colleagues.”

Harris now boasts 57 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, including eight with joint appointments across UChicago. Kwon and Delgado-Vega further strengthen Harris’s world-leading research groups in the fields of energy policy and political economy.

Kwon will be teaching Microeconomics II. Delgado-Vega will teach Analytical Politics I and Dynamic Game Theory, a course in the PhD in Political Economy program.

Hyuk-soo Kwon, Assistant Professor, Energy Policy

Assistant Professor Hyuk-soo Kwon’s research focuses on the intersection of policy and market inefficiencies, such as externalities and market power, particularly in the electric vehicle industry. His study on attribute-based subsidies explores optimal policy design to address multiple market failures. Meanwhile, his research on tradable emission credits compares price- and quantity-based environmental policies in the presence of market power. He has also investigated learning dynamics in the global EV battery industry, assessing the role of government policies in shaping industry outcomes.

Kwon completed a Ph.D. in Economics at Cornell University in 2023 and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).

His work has been recognized with awards such as The Louis Walinsky Fund in Economics Outstanding Teaching Award and the L.R. Red Wilson MA '67 Excellence in Economics Medal from Cornell University.

Álvaro Delgado-Vega, Assistant Professor, Political Economy

Assistant Professor Álvaro Delgado-Vega specializes in Political Economy and Organization Economics. He aims to deepen understanding of political and economic interactions. His work includes studies on the effects of political parties as long-lived organizations, interest groups’ role in political dynamics, and the role of an heir-apparent in political succession.

Delgado-Vega earned a Ph.D. from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, commonly known as ETH Zürich.

Álvaro Delgado-Vega has been recognized with the Outstanding Doctoral Award from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He has published in the European Economic Review and presented at conferences such as SIOE and SITE.