A Brazilian economist, who studied Economics at the University of Minas Gerais, Claudio de Moura Castro has a Master's Degree from Yale Universtiy, did one year doctoral work at the University of California (Berkeley) and has a Ph.D. in Economics from Vanderbilt University. He taught at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the Vargas Foundation, the University of Chicago, the University of Brasilia, the University of Geneva and the University of Burgundy (Dijon). He was the Technical Coordinator of the ECIEL research project on education (comprising ten Latin American countries), was the director of CAPES (Brazilian Agency for Post-Graduate Education) and  was the Executive Secretary of CNRH (the Brazilian social policy institute of the Planning Secretariat). Chief of the Training Policies Branch of the International Labour Office (Geneva) between 1986 and 1992, he also worked in a Technical Division of the World Bank as Senior Human Resource Economist. He was Division Chief of the Social Programs Division of the Interamerican Development Bank and then the Chief Educational Advisor of the same Bank. At present he is the President of the Advisory Council of the Faculdade Pitágoras. Has published over thirty five books and around three hundred scholarly articles.
His main fields of research are labor markets, social and economic aspects of education, vocational training and  science and technology policies.