I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1956, from Portuguese immigrants father's side and Armenian immigrants mother's side.

After completing High School, I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1975 as the dictatorship instaured in Uruguay in 1973 started prosecution of student activists. I lived in Buenos Aires until 1979 when I moved to Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain, where I started my undergraduate studies in Economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona from 1979 until 1984.

When I finished college I pursued graduate studies and I worked as a teaching assistant at the Department of Economic Theory of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 1986 I won a "La Caixa" scholarship for graduate studies in the United States. From 1986 until 1991 I worked in my Ph.D. at the Department of Economics of Stanford University under the supervision of Prof. Tim Bresnahan.

After finishing my Ph.D. I joined the Department of Economics and Business of Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 1992 where I became a tenured associate professor (Profesor Titular de Universidad) in 1999, and where I'm still working.

I'm married to Merche and I have two daughters, Sarah born in 1988 and Laura born in 1992.

I've been also involved in social activities, mainly related to parental boards in primary and secondary public schools, and I was the President of the Catalan Federation of Parental School Associations (FaPaC) from 2007 until March 2010.

I am also an advocate, user and participant of the Free Software community, and collaborate with the Ubuntu GNU Linux Catalan chapter.