Xavier  Xavier  Freixas, (Ph D. Toulouse 1978) is Professor of Economics at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Spain), Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, CEPR and Director at Financial Intermediation Research Society (FIRS).

He has been president of the European Finance Association and chairman of the Risk Based Regulation program of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). He has also been Deutsche Bank Professor of European Financial Integration at Oxford University; Houblon Norman Senior Fellow of the Bank of England, Bertil Danielsson invited scholar at the Stockholm School of Economics, Joint Executive Director Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada FEDEA) and Professor at Montpellier and Toulouse Universities. As an expert in the area of banking he has been a consultant for the European Investment Bank, the New York Fed, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, the IMF, the Interamerican Development Bank, the MEFF and the European Investment Bank.

His main research contributions concern the analysis of banking in an asymmetric information framework, and more specifically the issues of relationship banking, systemic risk, contagion and the lender of last resort. He is well known for his MIT press book, jointly with Jean-Charles Rochet, Microeconomics of Banking. o:p>

Awards: Institut d’Estudis Financers award 2013 ICREA Academia award to research excellence, 2010 Distinction of Generalitat de Catalunya to the promotion of the university research (2002-2008). Barclays Global Investors (BGI) Michael Brennan Award. Best papers published in Volume 19 of The Review of Financial Studies. P.D. Jacobs 1998 prize for the most significant paper published in the Journal of Financial Intermediation.