Hannes Mueller

Hannes Mueller is a tenured researcher at the Institute for Economic Analysis (IAE-CSIC) and the Director of the Data Science for Decision Making Program at the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE). He is affiliated with CEPR and serves as the theme leader for Institutions, Democracy, and Peace in the ReCIPE project. His research focuses on the application of machine learning techniques to issues in Political Economy, Conflict Studies, and Development Economics. Hannes’ work often involves analysing large datasets, such as newspaper archives and satellite images, to forecast and nowcast violence, with publications in prominent journals like the American Economic Review (AER), American Political Science Review (APSR), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and the Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA). Hannes has contributed extensively to public policy through research projects commissioned by various governments and international organisations, including the World Bank, IMF, UN, several INGOs, the Banco de España, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the German Federal Foreign Office. His work spans topics such as political transitions, displacement, the economic effects of armed conflict, structural transformation, and studies on political risk, conflict forecasting, and conflict prevention. Through projects like conflictforecast.org and the EconAI research group, Hannes combines academic research at the intersection of text mining, machine learning, and causal inference with public outreach. His research has featured in newspapers like the Financial Times, El Pais, La Vanguardia, national radio, and several podcasts, and blogs.