David Ibarra Muñoz

Who is David Ibarra Muñoz?

David Ibarra Muñoz is a Mexican economist who served as Secretary of Finance during most of José López Portillo's administration. He currently works as an independent advisor and serves in the board of directors of Grupo Carso and América Móvil.

Ibarra Muñoz was born in Santiago de Querétaro, Querétaro, into a family led by David Ibarra, an engineer. He graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with bachelor's degrees in Public Accounting and Economics and from Stanford University with a doctorate degree in Economics.

He has lectured in finance, planning and economics at the National University, where he has also served as Secretary of Social Services and as Director of Graduate Studies in the Faculty School of Economics. In 1958 he joined the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean as an economist in Santiago de Chile, Chile, and two years later he moved back to Mexico City to lead the development research department at its regional office; which he chaired from 1970 to 1973.

When José López Portillo assumed the presidency of Mexico, he served briefly as director-general of Nacional Financiera but was called on 17 November 1977 to substitute the Secretary of Finance, Julio Rodolfo Moctezuma. After failing to control inflation, facing a steep decline in oil prices and making, in his own words, "a series of economic policy blunders", he was asked to step down by the president on September 1982 to chair the then-recently nationalized National Bank of Mexico.