Astrid Ayala has a PhD in Economics from the University of Navarra. She is a full-time professor for the School of Business at Universidad Francisco Marroquín teaching various courses in the area of economics and finance at the undergraduate and master’s level. She is the Director of the Legal Master LLM in Finance for the school of Business at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
Her articles have been published in the Journal of the Spanish Economic Association (SERIEs), The European Journal of Finance, Economic Systems, Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics, Applied Financial Economics, Applied Economics Letters, among others. Dr. Ayala is the author of a book chapter edited by Palgrave Macmillan as well as co-founder and co-director of the Guatemalan Econometric Study Group (GESG). She has participated in various seminars, conferences, and lectures in the United States, Europe and Guatemala.
Her research interests are: Quantitative macroeconomics (economic growth, business cycle, public finances, economic convergence, unemployment, exchange rate, comparative economy, capital markets and real economy). Financial econometrics (distribution of returns, volatility models). Specific topics in applied econometrics (dynamic conditional scoring models, copulas, state space models, non-stationary time series, structural breaks, unit root tests, fractional integration).
