Perfil

Leandro Prados de la Escosura is Emeritus Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He is a corresponding fellow of Spain’s Real Academia de la Historia. He holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidad Complutense (Madrid).

He has taught at Georgetown University as the Prince of Asturias Professor and at the University of California, San Diego. Additionally, he has served as Honorary Maddison Chair at Groningen, Leverhulme Professorial Fellow at the London School of Economics, Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.

He served as President of the European Historical Economics Society from 2001 to 2003 and was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic History Association from 2006 to 2012.

He is an Editor of the Economic History Review. Previously he held the position of Editor for the Revista de Historia Económica and was an Associate Editor for the Journal of Economic Surveys. He is a member of the Honorary and Scientific Advisory Boards of Cliometrica, the European Review of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, and the Scandinavian Economic History Review.

He has published and edited monographs on long-run growth and distribution in Spain and Latin America since independence, the costs and benefits of European imperialism, British exceptionalism during the Industrial Revolution, and the sources of long-run growth. His recent publications include Spanish Economic Growth, 1850-2015 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Human Development and the Path to Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and A Millennial View of Spain’s Development: Essays in Economic History (Springer, 2024).

His current research focuses on economic freedom and well-being from a historical perspective.