Welcome. My name is Juan Carlos Urcia Barea.

I am an analyst and passionate student of political economy.

I work in the Sovereign Risk Group at Moody's Investors Service, where I am responsible for the ratings of sovereign governments primarily in Latin America including Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama. I have experience researching economic and political developments, analyzing and visualizing macroeconomic and financial data, and explaining what's going on in the world.

In 2022 I graduated with a Master in Public Affairs from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. There I pursued rigorous and technical coursework with practitioners focusing on macroeconomics and finance. In 2021, I completed a summer internship with the Office of International Financial Markets at the US Department of the Treasury.

Previously I served as a junior policy advisor for US Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland. My responsibilities centered on advancing the Senator's legislative priorities across a portfolio including labor, technology, immigration, civil rights, and social safety net issues. I worked on addressing the effects of the 35-day federal government shutdown in 2018-2019 as it relates to federal employees, as well as some of the policy responses at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: the CARES Act and related legislation on unemployment benefits and state fiscal relief.

I completed my Bachelor of Arts in History at Brown University and took many classes in Politics and Economics. The inspiration for my professional and intellectual path was a class on political economy taught by Mark Blyth, William R. Rhodes '57 Professor of International Economics, and formative years spent trying to make sense of the Global Financial Crisis and the Eurozone Debt Crisis.

I enjoy soccer, tennis, and reading about history, politics, and economics. I was born in the United States and am half Spanish and half Peruvian.

The best thing I ever did was walk the Camino de Santiago.

This website was originally made with HTML/CSS in February-March 2020.