Brenda Samaniego de la Parra is assistant professor of development economics in the Keough School of Global Affairs and a core faculty affiliate of the Keough School's Pulte Institute for Global Development. She has been a Kellogg faculty fellow since 2025.
Samaniego de la Parra’s research analyzes different work arrangements between workers and firms with a special focus on informality, how they respond to shocks, and their implications for wages and employment dynamics. Her work has provided novel estimates on the share of informal employment within formal firms and the impact of policies aimed at increasing formal work. A complementary strand of her scholarship studies the root of differences in firms’ performance and barriers to growth in developing countries.
Samaniego de la Parra also serves as an external consultant for the World Bank and the International Labour Organization. Previously she was an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and an associate at Cornerstone Research. She also served as special projects deputy director for the National Banking and Securities Commission in Mexico.
She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.