José-Victor Ríos-Rull

José-Victor Ríos-Rull is the Lawrence R. Klein Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as Professor of Finance (secondary appointment) and Director of the Penn Institute for Economic Research. His academic career spans multiple prestigious institutions, including the University of Minnesota (where he was Carlson Professor of Economics from 2007-2015) and University College London (where he has been a Professorial Research Fellow since 2017). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota in 1990 under the supervision of Nobel laureate Ed Prescott.

His research interests cover a broad spectrum of macroeconomic topics with a particular focus on heterogeneity in economic modeling. Key areas include business cycles, labor economics, public finance, health economics, and the distributional effects of economic policies. Ríos-Rull has pioneered the integration of heterogeneous agent models into mainstream macroeconomics, particularly examining how individual differences in wealth, health, and labor market experiences affect aggregate economic outcomes. His work on the distributional consequences of pandemics, sovereign debt, credit scoring, and tax policy has been particularly influential in recent years.

Ríos-Rull's scholarly output demonstrates consistent engagement with both theoretical and empirical dimensions of macroeconomics. His recent work shows increasing attention to health economics (particularly pandemic modeling), sovereign debt issues, and the intersection of financial innovation with household behavior. The recurring themes across his publications include the importance of incorporating heterogeneity into macroeconomic models, the analysis of fiscal policy effects across different population segments, and the examination of how various economic frictions affect aggregate outcomes.

• Economic Theory Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), 2017
• Honorary member of the Spanish Economic Association, 2008
• Fellow of the Econometric Society, 2007
• Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor of the Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 2006-2007
• Winner of the 2005 Arrow Prize for Senior Economists

Ríos-Rull has advised over fifty PhD students across multiple institutions, establishing himself as a significant mentor in the field. His grant history demonstrates sustained research funding, including multiple NSF grants spanning decades. He has organized numerous major conferences and served on editorial boards of top economics journals, including the Review of Economic Studies and the International Economic Review. His teaching portfolio includes advanced graduate courses in quantitative macroeconomics and undergraduate courses in public economics, reflecting his commitment to both research and education.