Jaime Reis (Lisboa, 1944) received both his B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (first class) (1967) and his D. Phil. in History (1975) from the University of Oxford, as well as an M.A. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1968). He holds the degree of “agregação” from the Faculdade de Economia of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (1984). During the 1970s he was a research fellow at the University of Glasgow, and held lectureships at Vanderbilt University and at the Universities of Glasgow and Leicester. After his return to Portugal, he was successively assistant, associate and full professor at the Faculdade de Economia of the Universidade Nova, between 1978 and 1993. He was also dean there in the period 1986-90. He joined the Gabinete de Investigações Sociais (GIS) in 1978 and became, in 1982, an associate research fellow and later a senior research fellow at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) of the Universidade de Lisboa,  where he has been until the present time. He was a professor of Economic History at the European University Institute (1996-2001), a visiting professor at Umea University (2001) and at the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (2005), and a visiting fellow at the Economic Research Department of the Bank of Portugal (2002).
He is a founder and former president of the European Historical Economics Society (1998-9) and a former member of the Committee of the International Association for Economic History (1994-2002). He has been on the editorial board of several national and international journals, and has been a member of the jury for various international scientific prizes. He is due to become, in 2008, one of the editors of the European Review of Economic History. He is a corresponding member of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa and has been on panels to evaluate research centers in History and undergraduate degree programs in Economics at Portuguese universities. In 2007, he gave the “Eli Hecksher Lecture at the Stockholm School of Economics.
His principal research interest focuses on Portuguese Economic History in the 19th and 20th centuries. He has worked on topics relating to agriculture, money and banking, labour and human capital, and the impact of institutions on economic growth. He has currently in preparation the second and third volumes of the History of the Bank of Portugal and is starting a major project (with other colleagues) on Prices, Wages and Rents in Portugal, 1500-1900. He is completing papers on the efficiency of 19th century Justice, anthropometrics in Portugal and the counterfeiting of fiduciary currency after the gold-standard. Recent publications are:

“Los Sistemas Financieros de la Periferia: Una Comparacion entre Escandinavia y el Sur de la Europa durante el Siglo XIX”, Papeles de Economia (2005), 105/6, pp.109-29.

( with Rui Pedro Esteves and Fabião Ferramosca) “ Market Integration in the Golden Periphery: The Lisbon/London Exchange, 1854-1891”, Economic Research Department, Bank of Portugal  WP 15-05 (2005).

“A Burocracia de uma Grande Empresa Portuguesa Oitocentista: Os Empregados do Banco de Portugal, 1846-1914” in Pedro Tavares de Almeida e Rui Miguel C. Branco (orgs.) (2007), Burocracia, Estado e Território em Portugal e Espanha, Séculos XIX e XX (Lisboa: Livros Horizonte), pp. 81-107.

“’An Art, not a Science?’ Central Bank Management in Portugal under the Gold Standard, 1863-1887”, Economic History Review (2007), 60, pp. 712-41.

“Institutions and Economic Growth in the Periphery: The Efficiency of the Portuguese Machinery of Justice, 1870-1910” in Facchini and Esfahani (forthcoming, 2008, Routledge)

“Regulation, Competition and Income Distribution: An Outsider’s Perspective”, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance (2008), nº 48 (forthcoming)

“Rural –Urban Migration and the Standard of Living of Lisbon and its Hinterland, 1840-1910” in Historia Rural (2008), Dezembro, nº 46 (forthcoming).