Dr. Belén Villegas Plá specializes in the political economy of Latin America. She has developed two main interconnected lines of research. The first examines the political economy of distributive policies in developing countries, and the second explores social reproduction and the care economy.

Her work has been published in prestigious academic journals, including New Political Economy, Competition & Change, Development and Change, Review of International Political Economy, Finance and Space, Third World Quarterly, Global Social Policy, and The International Journal of Care and Caring, among others.

Belén holds a PhD from the University of York. She regularly advises international institutions on issues of inequality and care, including ECLAC, UN Women, ODI Global, FCDO (UK), and has collaborated with several governments on the design of care strategies and policies across Latin America.