Luis Rayo is the Erwin P. Nemmers Professor of Strategy and Chair of the Strategy Department at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. His previous appointments include Professor of Finance at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, Professor of Management at the London School of Economics, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chair of ITAM’s economics department, and Visiting Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Luis is an applied economic theorist specializing in contract theory and information economics. His research covers a wide range of topics, including organizational economics, social economics, and the link between income and happiness. Luis has published in top economics journals including the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Econometrica, and Journal of Economic Literature. His research has been cited in leading media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Luis received the Ned Smith Research Mentorship Award at Kellogg in 2021, the Brady Teaching Award and Executive MBA Teaching Award at the University of Utah in 2015, and the Professional MBA Teaching Award at the University of Utah in 2012. He received the American Economic Review Excellence in Refereeing Award in 2011 and 2017, and the Review of Economic Studies Excellence in Refereeing Award in 2014.

Luis received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in economics from ITAM in 1998 and his PhD in economics from Stanford University in 2002.

• Ned Smith Research Mentorship Award

Research in Economics (MECS-560-3)
This course introduces first-year PhD students to the economics research environment. With an emphasis on breadth, and minimal prerequisite knowledge at the graduate level, students are exposed to the process of forming and answering research questions. The course involves multiple faculty providing their perspective on successful approaches to research by highlighting significant recent works in their respective fields of interest.

Strategy and Organization (STRT-452-0)

This course focuses on the link between organizational structure and strategy, making use of the microeconomic tools taught in MECN-430. The core question is how firms should be organized to achieve their performance objectives. The first part of the course takes the firm's activities as given and studies the problem of organizational design; topics may include incentive pay, decentralization, transfer pricing, behavioral biases, and complementarities. The second part examines the determinants of a firm's boundaries and may cover such topics as outsourcing, horizontal mergers, and strategic commitment.