I have joined the Institute in the fall of 1999, after a great time in Italy at Universita di Modena, courtesy of Graziella Bertocchi, and in Israel at the Hebrew University courtesy of Joseph Zeira, and in California at UCSD, courtesy of Leora Friedberg, and in Portugal at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, courtesy of Vasco D'Orey, and of course an excellent time in graduate school at Boston University, where I studied Macroeconomics with Russell Cooper.