About

Luis Garicano is a Professor of Public Policy at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on innovation, technology, and policy, with a particular emphasis on Europe and AI. He has started a new Substack on these topics in 2024, working alongside Pieter Garicano.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Political economy
• Public administration
• Law
• Development economics
• Economics

Selected publications

• Reforms to Ensure the Stability of the Euro–Member States, the EU and the ECB Need to Act

  The Economists Voice · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In the last two decades, the euro area was hit by multiple crises. Fiscal and monetary emergency actions broke important constraints and expectations set by the euro’s founding principles. Several euro countries broke fiscal rules. As politicians expect European Central Bank (ECB) support for public debt in any crisis, they have weak incentives to build fiscal buffers, or to undertake needed fiscal reforms. Consequently, fiscal spaces for additional borrowing are dangerously narrow. Banks also expect ECB support, and bank regulators still treat sovereign debt as risk free. Consequently, banks hold large quantities of sovereign debt. Sovereign restructuring then imperils the financial system. Reforms are necessary to strengthen the euro, and with it the benefits the euro provides to euro area citizens. Euro countries must face market discipline to give incentives for responsible fiscal policy and economic efficiency. In the end, euro countries must be able to default, i.e. restructure their debt, in an orderly manner without this creating a major financial disaster. This possibility requires a banking regulation reform that avoids the current incentives for banks to accumulate large exposures to public debt, in particular of their own domestic sovereign. The euro area needs a well-constructed European Fiscal Institution (EFI) for the management of fiscal troubles and balance of payment problems of euro countries. The EFI needs all necessary powers, tools, the ability to make swift decisions, and sufficient capital financed by member states, to fully unburden the ECB. The ECB should reduce its footprint to protect its independence, its balance sheet, and thereby its ability to fight inflation even in times of fiscal trouble. The ECB must stop quashing true market signals that give incentives for sound fiscal policies and prudent risk management of banks. The ECB should stay away from quasi-fiscal interventions, such as balance sheet policies that favor fiscally fragile countries and their bondholders and create fiscal transfers between countries and from taxpayers to banks.

  PublisherDOI

• Moving Laggards: Nudges and Training for Enterprise AI Adoption

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2026-05-16

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• The One-Person Unicorn: Integration as Weak-Link Technology, AI, and Competitive Advantage

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Moving Laggards: Nudges and Training for Enterprise AI Adoption

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2026-05-16

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Crisis Cycle

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2025-04-24 · 3 citations

  book

  How the euro survived a series of crises, and how to make it more resilient The euro has survived crises unimagined at its founding: the financial meltdown of 2007–2009, the sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2012, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Central Bank fought these crises with dramatic policy innovations, buying up vast amounts of debt and providing large loans to banks. But now everyone expects the ECB to intervene routinely, and the euro is more fragile as a result. Crisis Cycle recounts this history and offers recommendations for restoring a durable monetary union. Monetary and fiscal policy are intertwined, especially in a currency union like the eurozone. Member states can be tempted to borrow and spend too much, and then count on the ECB to rescue them by printing money to buy their bonds. To avoid these disincentives, the ECB was founded with a narrow mandate: use interest rates to pursue price stability, and don’t buy sovereign debt. Debt and deficit rules would keep countries from getting into trouble. The ECB’s emergency innovations brought back these disincentives. How can the EU avoid larger and larger bailouts? The authors argue that Europe needs a joint fiscal institution that can provide temporary help to sovereigns, a resolution mechanism so sovereign default is a motivating possibility, and bank reform that ensures sovereign default will not bring down the financial system. This timely book shows how to restore the euro’s ambitious and effective founding framework. The unique group of authors combine extensive policy experience and authoritative academic credentials.

  PublisherDOI

• Crisis Cycle

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2025-06-17

  book

  The euro has survived crises unimagined at its founding: the financial meltdown of 2007–2009, the sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2012, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Central Bank fought these crises with dramatic policy innovations, buying up vast amounts of debt and providing large loans to banks. But now everyone expects the ECB to intervene routinely, and the euro is more fragile as a result. Crisis Cycle recounts this history and offers recommendations for restoring a durable monetary union. Monetary and fiscal policy are intertwined, especially in a currency union like the eurozone. Member states can be tempted to borrow and spend too much, and then count on the ECB to rescue them by printing money to buy their bonds. To avoid these disincentives, the ECB was founded with a narrow mandate: use interest rates to pursue price stability, and don’t buy sovereign debt. Debt and deficit rules would keep countries from getting into trouble. The ECB’s emergency innovations brought back these disincentives. How can the EU avoid larger and larger bailouts? The authors argue that Europe needs a joint fiscal institution that can provide temporary help to sovereigns, a resolution mechanism so sovereign default is a motivating possibility, and bank reform that ensures sovereign default will not bring down the financial system. This timely book shows how to restore the euro’s ambitious and effective founding framework. The unique group of authors combine extensive policy experience and authoritative academic credentials.

  PublisherDOI

• Populism: Origins and Alternative Policy Responses

  Latin America Research Commons eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political economy

  Populist movements, parties and leaders have gained influence in many countries, disrupting long-established patterns of party competition, impugning the legitimacy of representative institutions and sometimes actively weakening or coarsening government capabilities. By positing an acute contrast between the will of the people and established elites, and advocating simplistic policy solutions careless of minority rights, populists have challenged the development and even the maintenance of liberal democracy on many fronts. Social scientists’ attention to populism has grown rapidly, although it remains somewhat fragmented across disciplines. Many questions remain. Are populism’s causes economic or cultural? National or local? Is populism a threat to liberal democracy? If so, what kind of threat? And what can be done about it? Employing a range of conceptual toolkits and methods, this interdisciplinary book addresses in a critical and evidence-based way the most common diagnoses of populism’s causes, consequences and policy antidotes.

  DOI

• Blockchain: The birth of decentralized governance

  Repositori digital de la UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) · 2018-04-01 · 2 citations

  preprintSenior author

  By allowing networks to split, decentralized blockchain platforms protect members against hold up, but hinder coordination, given that adaptation decisions are ultimately decentralized. The current solutions to improve coordination, based on premining cryptocoins, taxing members and incentivizing developers, are insufficient. For blockchain to fulfill its promise and outcompete centralized firms, it needs to develop new forms of soft decentralized governance (anarchic, aristocratic, democratic, and autocratic) that allow networks to avoid bad equilibria.

  Publisher

• Blockchain: The Birth of Decentralized Governance

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2018-01-01 · 66 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hierarchy

  The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics · 2018-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Hierarchies lighten the burden of the enormous informational requirements of the price system under uncertainty by acquiring more knowledge and information than any individual can. They are thus are useful for information handling. They can also allow agents to engage in collective actions by decreasing the risk of opportunistic behaviour. But trade-offs are involved because hierarchies impose costs, including communication among agents. This article reviews the literature on this trade-off and its implications for labour markets.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Thomas N. Hubbard

  Northwestern University

  61 shared

• Daniel Brieba

  Adolfo Ibáñez University

  49 shared

• Toni Roldán

  John F. Kennedy University

  49 shared

• Roberto Chang

  49 shared

• David Soskice

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  49 shared

• Francesco Caselli

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  49 shared

• Minouche Shafik

  Bocconi University

  49 shared

• Jason Furman

  Harvard University

  49 shared

Awards & honors

• Distinguished Alumni Award