Ideas That Change the World

As the cofounder and co-CEO of Stima Energia, a Brazilian energy trading company, Daniela Fusco Alcaro, MBA ’06, knows the challenges that come with starting and growing a business. Alcaro sees those challenges magnified in the Brazilian economy, which she describes as having a “trial and error culture” that would benefit from the discipline of empirical analysis and research insights.

In running her own company, Alcaro models the analytical rigor and research that she experienced at Booth. But she’s also doing her part to improve the broader situation as an advisory council member at the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago. BFI serves as a hub for analysis and research across the UChicago economics community, uniting researchers from Chicago Booth, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Law School, and other units. That synergy, and its potential to create large-scale change, is what drew Alcaro to join the council as a way to support the development of research that has broad policy implications.

“BFI is a game changer. UChicago economists produce innovative studies on contemporary issues, drawing conclusions with ramifications for positive change, and then BFI disseminates those findings globally,” Alcaro says. BFI Advisory Council members support the institute’s strategic decision-making by sharing management experience drawn from their areas of expertise. For example, Alcaro lends her insights on South America, startups, and clean energy.

BFI’s faculty director, John List, the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago, is furthering the institute’s commitment to frontier research and global impact. For List, growing BFI’s potential to change outcomes for the better means both supporting and amplifying research and examining associated research programs to direct funding to its best-use options. “At BFI, we support research that asks big questions to help us understand and improve the world,” List says. “The same goal motivated the pathbreaking research of our namesakes, Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, as well as their many influential colleagues, and we aim to revive that research tradition at UChicago.”

For Gregor Andrade, PhD ’99, principal at AQR Capital Management and adjunct associate professor of finance, the inspiration to join the BFI Advisory Council came from the institute’s podcast, The Pie. “I’d listen to it driving to and from work, and it was an insightful way to stay abreast of the latest economic research at UChicago,” he says. “At the end of each episode, the host would say, ‘This podcast is a production of the Becker Friedman Institute,’ and that piqued my interest.” Andrade was also drawn to BFI’s research briefs, conferences, videos, and other outreach efforts. “The ideas leave the confines of academia to influence the real world,” he says.

In his council role, Andrade brings roughly 25 years of experience in the asset management industry to support BFI and help the institute achieve its goals. That begins by bringing together scholars from across campus, he says. “Truly, only BFI could pull this off inside UChicago, and perhaps inside academia broadly speaking,” Andrade notes. “BFI breaks down barriers by encouraging and funding work across divisions, organizing forums where research is presented and discussed, and reinforcing the notion that economics is more than a theoretical exercise; it’s also a method to tackle important problems.”

Breaking down barriers and bringing scholars together is familiar to Chad Syverson, who was named BFI’s new deputy director in July. Syverson, the George C. Tiao Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at Booth, is accustomed to partnering with colleagues at Booth and in the economics department. “Working with more than 200 economists is not an easy task, but BFI succeeds because we connect the dots across campus,” Syverson says. “Also, our goal is aligned with that of the scholars: to produce cutting-edge research and to put those ideas into action.”

It’s why Alcaro and Andrade joined the BFI Advisory Council in the first place, and why they’re still involved. “I say this with total humility, given the world-class quality of the researchers at UChicago: I will do my best to bring whatever I’ve learned in my career to support the research coming out of BFI,” Andrade says.

Gary S. Becker, AM ’53, PhD ’55 (Economics), was University Professor of Economics and of Sociology at the University of Chicago and at Chicago Booth before his death in 2014. Milton Friedman, AM ’33, was the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Economics at the university before his death in 2006. Both were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Becker in 1992 and Friedman in 1976.

Learn more about the Becker Friedman Institute and the BFI Advisory Council.