About UCLA NAID CEnter

The NAID Center was founded in 1995 to conduct interdisciplinary research concerning the economic integration process between the United States, Mexico and Canada, and to assist communities and governments with projects and policies for sustainable and equitable development across borders. NAID Center activities over the last decade have followed the trajectory of globalizing trade, capital and migration in the midst of intra- and inter- regional disparities in income and productivity across communities and regions in the United States and Latin America.

The major research areas at NAID include economic and policy analysis of integration, including both economic modeling projections and empirical data tracking employment and incomes as related to trade, capital, migration and remittances flows. In addition, the NAID Center has received a number of grants focused on action-oriented field work designed to pilot innovative policy approaches to address issues of inequality in the process of economic integration. Many of these have focused on community-based initiatives organized trans-nationally between U.S. and Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Over the years, NAID Center expertise with cross-border institutions has informed a transnational agenda which draws on both international researchers and UCLA graduate students to create innovative strategies to respond to the challenges of migration, cross-border remittances and economic development. 

NAID Center researchers, funded by Mexican state governments, were among the first to investigate migrant remittance flows and associated strategies for economic development in and between the United States and migrant-sending regions of Latin America. NAID research and public policy programs have worked to create synergies between migrant hometown associations (HTAs) in the United States, credit unions and micro-banks on both sides of the border, and international financial institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the goal of developing economic development projects in migrant-sending regions of Latin America and immigrant communities in the United States.

For almost 20 years, the NAID Center has translated research findings into concrete projects and public policy strategies by bringing together researchers, international leaders and students at UCLA symposiums and by providing action research and recommendations to institutions ranging from the United States Congress to United Nations agencies and the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles. 

Research Staff

Dr. Raul Hinojosa

Ph.D. University of Chicago
Associate Professor
Founder and Executive Director of NAID Center

Dr. Felipe Lopez
Ph.D. University of California Los Angeles
UCLA Professor
Research Associate of NAID Center

Andres E. Jimenez
General Director, UCLA Latin American Social Science Council (CLACSO) Program

Joel Wynn
Research Associate
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Jennifer Romo
Assistant to Executive Director