Valentina Glaviano

/in /by

Valentina Glaviano

Valentina Glaviano grew up in Sacramento, California in a first-generation Italian American household. In high school, she was a stellar student and was admitted into plenty of colleges come senior year. The commitment process, however, was what she described as conservative. In addition to weighing academics, she had to choose a school that she could afford. As a California resident, UCLA became the obvious choice.

Coming into college, Valentina had tremendous clarity regarding what she wanted to pursue over the next four years. From a young age, she was set on working in the financial services industry because she viewed smart investing, along with education, as a massive equalizer that helps bring people out of poverty. Growing up, her parents were good investors, which allowed them to pay for her high school education at a private college prep school. In a similar manner, she too wanted to make a transformational difference in people’s lives by providing financial returns.

In order to pursue this goal, she chose to study economics. She was particularly attracted to UCLA’s economics program due to its focus on broad international themes. According to Valentina, at the time, “economic theory mainly focused on money supply” which is where UCLA was able to differentiate itself. 

In order to maximize the value she could obtain from her degree, Valentina’s college experience was primarily focused on two things. First, of course, was schoolwork. She described the classes she took as being directly applicable to the work she would go on to do in asset management. The second thing she devoted attention to was her job, which she took up in order to pay for tuition and rent. To get the most out of her time, she opted to apply for a commissioned sales position instead of one with only an hourly wage. In this position, she picked up valuable skills, which would help her land a job in finance upon graduation. She treated each sale much like a challenge and learned that one must take a fearless approach. Valentina described this process as the “hunt” and stressed that in order to be successful, one must thoroughly enjoy hunting.

When it came time to look for a full-time job, her sales skills translated to conquering a fear of rejection and being relentless when networking with professionals in the financial services industry. Even though she was not a member of any business club like so many economics students are now, she was still able to build a network of connections on her own. This allowed her to get a job in investment management upon graduation, and she has been working in finance ever since. Such an industry is notorious for its long hours, especially for analysts fresh out of college. Her advice to avoid feeling overwhelmed is that one must first “work in finance for the right reasons”, meaning they must actually want to help people. Those who enter for the lucrative compensation “rarely succeed long term”. 

Valentina’s own passion for helping others through finance continues to motivate her through her busy workdays. Valentina wakes up at around 5:30 am, starting her day off with an early morning workout. If she finds herself in the office that day, then she will generally be attending several back-to-back meetings in which she meets with team members on the various projects that she is leading. On the other hand, if she is traveling that day, she expects to primarily meet with prospective clients to demonstrate why her firm’s outsourced CIO approach aligns with the missions and values of the client. She emphasized the extensive research necessary to prepare for her meetings, including material that might sound familiar to business economics students. Valentina pulls balance sheets, income statements, and annual reports in order to analyze metrics like the variability of income, the stress of the balance sheet, and spending deficit. Ultimately, she ends the work day feeling fulfilled from rising up the challenge of her job and from the satisfaction that her work is helping improve the life of many others.

Simon Board Awarded Spring 2022 Warren C. Scoville Distinguished Teaching Award

/in /by

Simon Board won the Spring 2022 Warren C. Scoville Distinguished Teaching Award for his new class “Econ 106S: Competitive Strategy”. This class uses a combination of economic principles and case studies to discuss the economic forces underlying successful business strategy. Specifically, it teaches students to identify sources of sustainable competitive advantage and to understand the dynamics of strategic interaction between firms. The class covers topics such as economics of scale, network effects, switching costs, and platform markets. Simon Board is the Benjamin Graham Centennial Chair of Value Investing at UCLA.

Conference in Honor of Harold Demsetz

/in /by

On May 27th, former colleagues, students, and friends of Harold Demsetz (1930-2019) hosted a conference in his honor. A video of the conference is available here.

Harold Demsetz (1930-2019), a long-time professor at UCLA, was a pioneer in the development and use of microeconomic theory to analyze questions of how property rights and institutional arrangements affect competitive behavior of firms and individuals and market outcomes.

Aging Population and Aging Firms

/in /by
Hugo Hopenhayn

Hugo Hopenhayn

By Hugo Hopenhayn

During the last 40 years, the US economy has been experiencing a series of trends that have captured the attention of economists, public policy, and media. Firstly, there has been a sharp decline in the rate of growth of labor force, following a similar decline in fertility rates. Secondly, there has been a decline in the rate of entry and exit of new businesses and a subsequent aging of the population of firms. Finally, there has been a steady increase in average firm size and concentration and a decline in labor share.

In the paper “From Population Growth to Firm Demographics: Implications for Concentration, Entrepreneurship and the Labor Share”, Professor Hopenhayn and his coauthors Julian Neira and Rish Singhania, provide a unified account of these trends, considering the role of population growth and firm demographics.

The analysis in the paper begins by highlighting the importance of changing firm

demographics as a driving force to explain these aggregate trends. The mass of US firms has been aging. While in the mid 80’s firms over ten years old accounted for 30% of the total population of firms, the share steadily climbed to reach 50% by 2015. What are the consequences of firm aging?

Firms size is increasing in age, that is a fact that holds not only for US firms but overall. The average size of a firm that is between 20 and 25 years of age is over four times as large as the average size of an entrant. Same holds for concentration, where the average increases with the age of a cohort. As a result, the aging of firms results in higher average firm size and concentration. As the paper shows, had it not been for firm aging, employment concentration would have, if anything, declined. Similarly, older firms have considerably lower exit rates than younger ones. The process of aging also explains most of the observed decline in exit rates.

So why have firms aged? The rate at which firms are created is directly related to the growth of labor force, as labor is one of the most important inputs of firms. This holds true in the aggregate data for the US but also when comparing population and firm dynamics across counties in the US, as shown in a recent paper by Pugsley and Sahin (2018). So the aging of population slows down the growth rate of labor force and thus new firm creation. This starts a gradual process of aging of firms which leads to the increase in average firm size and average concentration.

The fall in the growth of the labor force has been quite dramatic. While in the late 70’s it was growing at 2.5% per year, it is currently down to 0.5% per year. This drop has two sources. First, the US has followed the declining trend in fertility rates observed in most developed economies. Secondly, the US experienced an unusual growth in fertility rates in the postwar period, what is known as the baby boom. As a result, labor force growth followed an increasing trend that peaked in the mid 70’s. The following decline is explained by the drop in fertility and the progressive retirement of the baby boomers . Professor

Hopenhayn and coauthors find that these two factors jointly account for almost all the decline in entry rates and the subsequent aging of firms.

Mila Skulkina

/in /by

Mila Skulkina

Mila Skulkina, class of 2001 has lived a storied life. In this profile she shares her UCLA story and how lessons learned on campus have impacted her career.

When Mila was a teenager in the 1990s, she and her father emigrated to the United States from Moscow. She had a rudimentary knowledge of the English language and had to learn to adapt to a new life in Los Angeles. Witnessing the stark contrast in economic and political models between the two countries at a young age and the subsequent effects they played on the lives of citizens in each really fueled her curiosity in economics and the world of finance.  She chose to study those subjects at UCLA and vividly recalls learning the history and the practical implications of various economic theories.  She especially enjoyed the variety of classes offered both throughout the core curriculum up through the electives offered during Junior and Senior year.  Mila encourages every student to evaluate all of the classes UCLA offers and to not only focus on areas where students feel like they have an edge. Pushing deeper into where one may have blind spots is what makes the art of inquiry and learning so enriching.

Mila was impacted by the mentorship and support of others during her time at UCLA, which has shaped her own passion for giving back. She considers herself fortunate to have had the opportunity to interact with Dr. Ken Sokoloff, first as a student of economic history, then in a smaller self-designed class study, and finally as one of his research contributors. She continues to carry his lessons of imparting a global and historical perspective to understand how institutional frameworks were created and fared over time across different political and economic models. Now, as an investor in Emerging Markets at Lord Abbett she uses that framework to think about the path of global economies and geopolitical environments which allows her to discern and recognize patterns.  She credits her time spent at UCLA, the wide array of offered classes, and her relationships with peers, faculty, and specifically Ken, to be the foundation for her successful work product. 

Mentorship is a theme throughout Mila’s career- her current mentor from UCLA Anderson helped her advance her efforts in volunteering and community involvement. Throughout her life, she worked closely with organizations focusing on the support and advancement of women, underprivileged youth, and veterans.  As  a member of the Bretton Woods committee, she contributes to work on economic and global cooperation, as well as initiatives on climate finance. To influence the next generation of students, she is working closely with UCLA as a member of the Board of Visitors to give back to the school that was so instrumental in her own career and life.


Mila Skulkina is the Head of Emerging Markets Fixed Income and a portfolio manager at Lord Abbett. She manages emerging markets sovereign and corporate debt across fixed income and multi-asset portfolios. Ms. Skulkina leads the ESG Sovereign analysis and integration for Emerging Markets. Prior to joining Lord Abbett in 2013, Ms. Skulkina was a research analyst at Sanders Capital working across long-only, long/short, and multi-asset portfolios. Previously, she was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and an investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. She has 20 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She received her undergraduate degree in business economics from UCLA, graduating summa cum laude. She is also a member of the Board of Visitors of the UCLA Economics Department and a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.