Álvaro Espinoza Benza
Adjunct Researcher
Master in Political Science - New School of Social Research
aespinoza@grade.org.pe
Álvaro graduated in Economics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from the New School of Social Research in New York. He is an Adjunct Researcher at GRADE. His work has focused on public management, institutional economics and urban development.
Álvaro has a broad experience as a consultant and researcher on institutional and agricultural issues undertook for various national and international bodies. He has held several senior management positions in public institutions linked to rural development and urban policies. Currently, he conducts projects linked to this last issue, with a particular stress in the development of urban peripheries.
Publications
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Mapeo y tipología de la expansión urbana en el Perú
2020 Álvaro Espinoza, Ricardo Fort
Este documento resume los principales hallazgos de un estudio encargado por la Asociación de Desarrolladores Inmobiliarios (ADI) y ejecutado por el Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) durante el año 2019, cuyo objetivo es cuantificar y comprender la dinámica interna del crecimiento urbano del Perú en las últimas dos décadas. El ámbito del estudio […]
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The impact of social ties and third-party enforcement on collective action and growth: micro evidence from Peru
2019 Keefer Philip, Mauricio Espinoza, Álvaro Espinoza, Ricardo Fort
Exploiting a unique empirical setting, 1,000 vendors in 90 traditional food markets in Lima, researchers document that historic social ties among market founders are associated, decades later, with stricter formal (third party) enforcement of market rules, more collective action, and the greater resilience of market sales to the entry of modern supermarkets. Markets with stronger […]
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Planning informality: Promoting a market of planned informal settlements
2018 Álvaro Espinoza, Ricardo Fort
About 30% of the population in developing countries live in informal urban settlements lacking adequate basic services, public spaces and urban equipment. The origin to most of these shortcomings can be traced to a single feature: the urban layout design.
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Communities and Spontaneous Urban Planning: A Toolkit for Urban Expansion. Project Summary
2018 Álvaro Espinoza, Ricardo Fort
Most urbanization processes around developing countries are happening either by rural-urban migration, as it happened in Lima 25 years ago, or by high paced vegetative population growth among second and third-generation migrants, as it is happening now in Lima—and either form exerts pressure on relatively weak public institutions. State-sponsored urban planning is often absent, so […]
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Planificar la informalidad: herramientas para el desarrollo de mercados de “urbanizaciones informales planificadas”
2018 Álvaro Espinoza, Ricardo Fort
Alrededor de un tercio de la población peruana —más de 10 millones de personas— viven en asentamientos urbanos marginales ocupados generalmente de manera informal. Según el Ministerio de Vivienda, estos asentamientos no tienen un diseño adecuado de la trama urbana y se caracterizan por carecer, total o parcialmente, de servicios básicos, espacios públicos y equipamiento […]
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Projects
- Study for the improvement of tax collection in the Provincial Municipality of Huancayo through the Preparation of a Fiscal Cadastre Linked to the Municipal Tax Collection SystemOctober 2020
- COVID-19 and migration from the city to the countryside in Peru: Identification of threats and opportunities for the sustainable use of natural capitalOctober 2020
- Partial formulation of Development and Innovation Strategies (EDIR) in the regions of Ayacucho, Apurimac and CuscoSeptember 2020
- Characterization and quantification of recent urbanization and housing construction processes in PeruDecember 2018
- Mechanisms for articulated management and intersectoral and intergovernmental coordination with a territorial approach for the implementation of the National Family Agriculture Plan 2019-2021December 2019
- Improving municipal tax collection through new technologiesMarch 2018
- Typology of provincial and district municipalities of PeruNovember 2017
- Governance and productivity in food markets in LimaSeptember 2016
- The processes of spontaneous urbanization in the absence of the StateMarch 2016
- The governance and productivity of the wholesale markets in Lima: a pilot studyOctober 2015
Media
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Alvaro Espinoza in Latina: decree grants property titles in risk areas
February 22, 2022 Urbanization and sustainable cities
The Informal Property Formalization Agency (Cofopri) is preparing a decree that would grant property titles to owners of informal buildings located in risk areas. Our Adjunct Researcher Alvaro Espinoza analyzes this decree in the Latina report and maintains that “what this bill is doing is increasing the profitability of land traffickers even more.” See the full reportage here.
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Comment, Media GRADE, GRADE frente al COVID-19
Migrate to survive. Ojo Público’s reportage gathers GRADE findings
December 12, 2021 Natural resources, extractive industries and social conflict
Between March and December 2020, approximately 248.311 Peruvians returned to their rural areas of origin from the cities. According to the study from our researchers Ricardo Fort, Mauricio Espinoza, and Alvaro Espinoza for the Inter-American Development Bank, this is the first mass return process in the history of Peru. Read OjoPúblico’s reportage. DOWNLOAD THE STUDY here.
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Promoting informality, by Alvaro Espinoza
July 30, 2020 Urbanization and sustainable cities
“A really sensible housing policy without consistency in the title of the precarious land, but rather generates alternatives of access to decent housing, or at least to the authorized lots, for the families who have to have in the land traffickers their only option viable”. Our adjunct researcher, Álvaro Espinoza, writes in El Comercio about the […]
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Comment, Media GRADE, GRADE frente al COVID-19
Alvaro Espinoza in La Mula: Markets and coronavirus: what to do with them?
May 5, 2020 Urbanization and sustainable cities
“We have to understand that we are in a different situation than in recent years. It is a time where we have to readjust how we behave, it is an opportunity to break some traditional behaviors. In a scenario where the pandemic continues, sellers want to work and consumers want to buy, but they don’t want to […]
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Opinion Article, Media GRADE, GRADE frente al COVID-19
Propuesta de medidas para reducir aglomeraciones y contagios en los mercados de abastos
April 29, 2020
Por: Ricardo Fort y Alvaro Espinoza. Hace casi un mes, nuestro artículo sobre focos de contagio en Lima advirtió e identificó los principales mercados que podían convertirse en focos de contagio del COVID-19. Hoy sabemos que más del 20% de los comerciantes en el Mercado Caqueta están infectados con el virus. Aquí presentamos una lista de […]
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Opinion Article, Media GRADE, GRADE frente al COVID-19
Zonas prioritarias para la prevención y control del contagio del COVID-19 en Lima
April 2, 2020 Urbanization and sustainable cities
El equipo del área de Urbanización y Ciudades Sostenibles de GRADE1 ha elaborado una propuesta de identificación de zonas prioritarias para la prevención y control del contagio del COVID-19 en la ciudad de Lima, utilizando data geoespacial del Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2017. Nuestro objetivo es contribuir a la efectividad de las medidas del gobierno […]
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Property tax: innovate for better governing, by Ricardo Fort and Alvaro Espinoza
February 14, 2019 Employment, productivity and innovation
Our researchers Ricardo Fort and Álvaro Espinoza shared a concrete and low cost proposal in order to improve the municipal governance and to increase the property tax collection using modern technology. Read the full text in Gestión Newspaper.
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The quality of public investment without land planning, by Alvaro Espinoza and Ricardo Fort
June 7, 2017 State reform and public institutions, Urbanization and sustainable cities
Why is urban public investment poorly prioritized, disjointed and fragmented? Read the article by our researchers, Álvaro Espinoza y Ricardo Fort, published in La Mula, with the main findings of their study on the quality of public investment without land planning in vulnerable neighborhoods in Lima.
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Comment, Media GRADE, GRADE frente al COVID-19
Alvaro Espinoza in La Mula: Markets and coronavirus: what to do with them?
May 5, 2020 Urbanization and sustainable cities
“We have to understand that we are in a different situation than in recent years. It is a time where we have to readjust how we behave, it is an opportunity to break some traditional behaviors. In a scenario where the pandemic continues, sellers want to work and consumers want to buy, but they don’t want to […]
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Álvaro Espinoza: “In Lima almost all the flood damage was caused by the illegal occupation of land”
July 20, 2017 Urbanization and sustainable cities
“In Lima almost all the flood damage was caused by the illegal occupation of land”, said our Adjunct Researcher, Álvaro Espinoza, in an article published by the British newspaper The Guardian on the latest natural disasters and the high risk of housing building in vulnerable areas of our capital city.
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More than 57% of public works in vulnerable areas of Lima is not priority
April 7, 2017 State reform and public institutions, Urbanization and sustainable cities
The newspaper Gestión gathers the findings of our researchers Álvaro Espinoza and Ricardo Fort about the quality of public investment without territorial planning in vulnerable urban settlements of Lima. They found that around half of the public investment in highly vulnerable settlements is for public works of low priority and impact. This due to the investment that […]
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Half of the investment in vulnerable neighbourhoods goes to low quality projects
April 6, 2017 State reform and public institutions, Urbanization and sustainable cities
El diario La República destaca los hallazgos del estudio de Álvaro Espinoza y Ricardo Fort sobre la calidad de la inversión pública urbana sin planificación territorial. Los autores identificaron que casi la mitad de la inversión destinada a la infraestructura en barrios vulnerables de Lima se destina a obras de baja prioridad, dejando de lado […]
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