Pope Francis appoints Fil-Am economist to Vatican post

MANILA – Pope Francis has appointed a Filipino-American economist as part of the financial intelligence and anti-money laundering unit of the Vatican.

According to an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website on May 27, Dr. Roberto Mariano has been named a board member of the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (ASIF).

He was appointed to the post on May 9.

Mariano is a native of Rizal province where he was born in 1944. He went to the US in the 1960s and became a naturalized citizen in 1980.
He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1971. He served as undergraduate chair in the Department of Economics.

He is also a professor emeritus at the Singapore Management University where he served as founding dean of the School of Economics and vice provost for research from 2002 to 2010.

A fellow of the Econometric Society, Mariano has served on the editorial boards of international journals in economics and statistics and has published extensively on econometric methodology in top-tier international journals.

He has been a consultant to multinational institutions, central banks, government agencies, and private companies in Asia and the US, with focus on econometric methodology and applications.

Meanwhile, ASIF president Carmelo Barbagallo welcomed Mariano’s appointment, saying his expertise would be of great service to the financial watchdog agency.

Barbagallo added that he was “certain” Mariano would be able to “contribute his experience and professionalism for an outstanding fulfillment of the tasks” assigned to the ASIF.

The Vatican News reported that Mariano is “renowned for many of the econometric models he has helped create that are used today as planning and forecasting tools.”