Matthew Amengual

Matthew Amengual is the Maurice F. Strong Career Development Professor and an Associate Professor in Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan. He is affiliated with the Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER) and the Sustainability Initiative. 

Broadly, he investigates the politics of promoting economic development that is both equitable and sustainable.  His work focuses on the interactions between government bureaucracies, societal organizations, and firms in countries with weak institutions.  Amengual is currently conducting a study on the local developmental impacts of large-scale mining operations in Latin America.  This project seeks to inform strategies employed by various actors to make extractives more likely to foster inclusive and sustained development.  

In addition, Amengual has an active research agenda on the ways in which labor and environmental regulations are implemented in middle-income and developing countries.  One area of study has focused on the interactions between international and state labor regulation in the garment industry.  This line of research began in the Dominican Republic and is now continuing with a study of an initiative of the International Labor Organization in Indonesia.  Finally, through a detailed study of subnational differences in Argentina across a variety of industries, Amengual has been conducting research on how politicized states enforce labor and environmental regulations.  His first book, Politicized Enforcement in Argentina: Labor and Environmental Regulation, will be published by Cambridge University Press.  In addition, his research has been published in Politics & Society, World Development, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Desarrollo Económico.

Amengual coteaches Strategies for Sustainable Business and the Laboratory for Sustainable Business (S-Lab), an action learning class that gives students the opportunity to work on real-world problems on business, the environment, and society.

Amengual received his AB in environmental studies from Brown University, and his Master’s in city planning and PhD in political science, both from MIT.