About

Senior Economist

José Caballero is a Senior Economist at the IMD World Competitiveness Center. He is responsible for the Center’s different research projects and leads the research team in the development and implementation of new models of assessing competitiveness. He identifies relevant aspects of competitiveness and determines ways to incorporate them into the Center’s research agenda and portfolio.

His research interests focus on the sources of the competitiveness of countries and more specifically on the competitiveness of enterprises. Caballero is particularly interested in practices and processes that strengthen the competitiveness of firms which ultimately lead to the achievement of long term value creation. He is keen on understanding how social asymmetries impact value creation. He is passionate about identifying the means to ameliorate those asymmetries while furthering competitiveness.

Caballero has conducted research at the International Institute for Corporate Governance (Yale School of Management) and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER, USA). In addition, he has acted as an academic adviser to the World Justice Project in the development of the Rule of Law Index. He has also worked as a consultant for the European Union Support Program for Central American Integration, the Private Sector Advisory Department at the World Bank, the International Investment Corporation (World Bank), and the Inter-American Development Bank.

He is an expert on the political economy of Latin America and has taught at the University of Warwick (UK) and the University of the West of England (Bristol, UK). He holds a PhD in politics and international studies from the University of Warwick and an MA in social science (government) from Harvard University.

Research Specialist

Marco Pistis is a research associate at the IMD World Competitiveness Center. He is an economist and data scientist with over eight years of experience in processing, analyzing, and modeling data to deliver actionable insights for governmental and business decision-makers.

Pistis has experience in the development of natural language processing (NLP) and large language (LLM) models and applications.

He is the co-author of research reports, books, and peer-reviewed academic articles on issues related to labor economics, competitiveness, digital competitiveness, and smart cities.

Before joining IMD, he worked for the World Bank and the Employment Department of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Pistis holds a Master of Science in economic policy from University College London (UCL), a Master’s degree in financial economics, and a degree in economics and management from Luiss Guido Carli University (Rome, Italy).

Research Specialist

Maryam Zargari is a research associate at the IMD World Competitiveness Center. She leads cross-functional research and advisory projects, collaborating both internally and externally to deliver innovative solutions in data science. Notably, she played a pivotal role in enhancing the Center’s statistical methodology and rankings and acted as a subject matter expert.

Prior to this, she served as a data analyst at Alyeska Advisors in Geneva and as a statistician at the Nestlé Research Center, Lausanne. With a solid educational background, Zargari holds a Master’s degree in mathematical engineering from EPFL, Lausanne. She is proficient in various programming languages and particularly enjoys tackling complex data challenges.