Dr. Maria Racionero obtained the First National Prize, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, upon completion of her undergraduate studies. She pursued her doctoral studies at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, within the IDEA program (International Doctorate in Economic Analysis), where she obtained both a Master and a Ph D degrees in Economics. From 1997 she benefited from a TMR European Community grant to conduct research at CORE (Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium). Her main field of research is public economic theory, with particular interest in optimal taxation theory, and her work has been published in refereed international journals (Canadian Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Oxford Economic Papers and International Tax and Public Finance). Energy economics is listed among her research interest.