Filipe R. Campante is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS and Carey Business School). He is interested in political economy, development economics, and urban/regional issues. His research looks at what constrains politicians and policy makers beyond formal checks and balances: cultural norms, institutions, media, political protest. In particular, it has focused on how these informal constraints are affected by the spatial distribution of people and economic activity, by access to information, by the evolution of cultural norms, and by the structure of the economy. He tries to answer these aggregate questions — what happens to countries or states or cities — with an applied microeconomic approach.