Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán is the Manager of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank. He is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and a Research Fellow at Mexico's National Research System (SNI). Prior to joining the World Bank in 2011, Carlos was a postdoctoral fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development programs of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Before that he worked for the Government of Mexico in the Ministry of Public Education and in the Ministry of the Environment.

His main areas of interest are in public economics and development economics. His research focuses on growth, productivity and inequality analysis, fiscal and social policies, and risk management. He has over 60 published articles, chapters in books and working papers, including several papers in peer reviewed academic journals. His research has been recognized with the 2024 IZA Award on Innovative Research in the Economics of Climate Change (IRECC) and the 2018 National Award in Public Finance from the Mexico's Congressional Budget Office of Mexico. 
He holds a bachelor's degree in economics, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's in public policy from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). He also holds a masters and doctorate in economics from Cornell University.

Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán joined IZA as a Research Fellow in February 2019.