Rate My Professor Luís Catela Nunes

Luís Catela Nunes is a Full Professor of Applied Econometrics at Nova School of Business and Economics, the Business & Economics faculty of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 1987, Master's degree in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991, PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994, and Agregação from Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2014. Nunes has held several leadership positions at Nova SBE, including President of the Pedagogical Council, Deputy Dean for Research, and Head of the Research Unit. In 2017, he established the Social Sciences DataLab, a national research infrastructure in the social sciences. He currently serves as a scientific director of the Economics of Education Knowledge Center, where he coordinates research projects examining the benefits of grade repetition for low-achieving students, teachers' impact on student learning, inclusion and discrimination of immigrant students, and the demand and supply of teachers.

His primary research interests encompass applied econometrics, economics of education, environmental economics, econometrics of structural change, economic valuation of the environment, and time series analysis. Nunes's scholarly contributions appear in leading international journals such as Journal of School Choice, Environmental & Resource Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Applied Economics, and Land Economics. Key publications include "School and class segregation in Portugal: The role of academic and socioeconomic backgrounds" (2026, with Firmino, de Almeida, and Batista); "Understanding the private-public school performance gap in PISA: evidence from Portugal" (2025, with Colaço, Freitas, and Balcão Reis); "Willingness to pay for nature protection: Crowdfunding as a payment mechanism" (2025, with Cunha-e-Sá et al.); "Fire takes no vacation: Impact of fires on tourism" (2022, with Otrachshenko); "The Portuguese escudo area in Africa and its lessons for monetary unions" (2021, with Mata and Roldão); and "Is retention beneficial to low-achieving students? Evidence from Portugal" (2018, with Balcão Reis and Seabra). Additionally, he has authored commissioned reports for organizations like Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos and Direção Geral de Estatísticas da Educação e Ciência on topics such as vocational education expansion and teacher needs forecasting from 2025 to 2034. Nunes received the Best Professor Award from the Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova part-time class of 2012-2014.