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About Ana
Ana Balcão Reis is Full Professor of Economics at Nova School of Business and Economics, part of the Business & Economics faculty at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She earned her PhD in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 1999 and obtained her Agregação in Economics from Nova SBE in 2020. Currently, she serves as Associate Dean for Degree Programs and Scientific Director of the Nova SBE Economics of Education Knowledge Center. From 2015 to 2023, she was President of the Pedagogical Council at Nova SBE. Since July 2024, she has been a Member of the National Education Council (CNE) in Portugal, and in 2025, she was appointed as Portugal’s national delegate to the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Her research specializes in the economics of education, economic growth, and human capital, with a focus on school effectiveness, student performance, and education policy. She teaches Economics of Education courses in master’s programs and supervises master’s and PhD students. Her work has appeared in prominent journals such as the Journal of Development Economics, Economics of Education Review, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and Journal of International Economics.
Ana Balcão Reis has published extensively on topics including gender gaps in assessments, private-public school performance differences in PISA, student selection in higher education, and the effects of retention policies. Key publications include “What matters for the decision to study abroad? A lab-in-the-field experiment in Cape Verde” (Journal of Development Economics, 2025, with Catia Batista et al.), “Understanding the private-public school performance gap in PISA: evidence from Portugal” (Large-scale Assessments in Education, 2025, with Ricardo Colaço et al.), “Gender gaps in different grading systems” (Education Economics, 2021), “Public funding of higher education: who gains, who loses?” (International Journal of Economic Theory, 2020), and “Human capital and overinvestment in R&D” (Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2007). She contributes to policy debates and research on the Portuguese education system, influencing educational outcomes and reforms through her academic and advisory roles.