Sérgio Rebelo was born in Viseu, Portugal, on the 29th October, 1959. His major areas of research are Macroeconomics and International Finance. He is currently the Tokai Bank Distinguished Professor of International Finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received a  “Licenciatura” in Economics from the Portuguese Catholic University, a Masters in Operations Research from Instituto Superior Técnico, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester in the U.S.

He left Portugal for the United States because the research environment and support is much better in the United States. His advisors in Portugal were António Pinto Barbosa and Aníbal Cavaco Silva (nowadays the Presidente of Portuguese Republic). Without their encouragement Rebelo would never have gone to the U.S. for a Ph.D. He received financial support from the University of Rochester, the JNICT (Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica), the Fullbright Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.
 
Rebelo feels immensely lucky because he was able to start doing research as a first year Ph.D. student with his advisor, Robert G. King. They ended up writing many papers together. It was through this collaboration that  Professor Rebelo learned how to do research.
 
His first job was at Northwestern University. After two years at Northwestern he decided to return to Portugal, to the Portuguese Catholic University and the Bank of Portugal. Two years later Rebelo received the Olin Fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which allowed him to spend a full year doing research at the NBER in Boston.
 
While he was in Boston, the University of Rochester offered him a tenured position. At this point he was discouraged with the prospects for being able to continue a full-time research career in Portugal, so he accepted. Later, the University of Northwestern offered him the Tokai chair and he accepted. Moving to a different university was always motivated by the conditions offered (teaching load, research support, access to Ph.D. students, and salary).
 
Sérgio Rebelo has received support from the National Science Foundation, other foundations, and the World Bank. He usually works closely with one or two Ph.D. student.
 
His scientific dream is to help discover answers to important questions such as what drives economic growth, what causes business cycles, and what causes financial crises. These are phenomena that affect the lives of millions of people. His current work studies large exchange rate devaluations and currency speculation episodes.
 
He has worked in three different areas. He studied the effect of economic policy on the rate of economic growth, worked on business cycle models and, more recently, has worked on currency crises.
 
Sérgio Rebelo received the Alfred P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and the Ohlin Fellowship. He is a fellow of the two most important research networks in Economics, the National Bureau of Economic Research, in the U.S. and the Center for Economic Policy Research in Europe. He has also been an associate editor for major economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the European Economic Review, and the Journal of Monetary Economics.
 
Professor Rebelo has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the European Central Bank, the McKinsey Global Institute, and other organizations.
 
He has been offered both academic and non-academic positions in Portugal. But he would like to continue doing research and the conditions offered by Portuguese institutions pale in comparison with those offered in the United States. During many years he waited for an offer that would allow him to return to Portugal and continue a full-time  research career. Currently he would be happy if there was an institutional arrangement that would allow him to spend some time working in Portugal.