Prof Javier Rivas joined the department in 2013 as Senior Lecturer after working for five years as a Lecturer at the University of Leicester. In 2025 he was promoted to Professor.

Prof Rivas received a PhD and MSc in Economics from the European University Institute (Italy). He also holds a PGC in Higher Education by the University of Leicester, a BSc in Economics by the University of Alicante (Spain) and a BSc in Mathematics by the UNED (Spanish National Distance Learning University).

Prof Rivas’s main area of expertise is Economic Theory. He has published theoretical, applied, and experimental papers in the fields of, among others, Health Economics, Political Economy, and Development Economics, and has conducted interdisciplinary research in disciplines such as Anthropology and Political Science. His research has appeared in world-leading journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Games and Economic Behavior, and he is often invited to present in seminars internationally (Wisconsin–Madison, Carlos III, and Vienna, to name a few) and to speak at conferences such as the World Congress of the Game Theory Society and the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association. He regularly serves as a referee for top international journals like the Journal of Economic Theory, and he is the editor of the BE Journal of Theoretical Economics.

On top of this, Prof Rivas has led major knowledge-exchange initiatives across health economics, anthropology and political economy. For example, his research on sugar taxes and unhealthy-food policy appeared in over a hundred outlets and various national newspapers, led to BBC and The Economist interviews, and reached around 2.5 million people. Moreover, it informed briefings for the WHO, Public Health England and parliamentary groups. Moreover, Prof Rivas’ interdisciplinary anthropology studies have been quoted in multiple outlets with an AVE exceeding £1.6m and reached an audience of 178 million people. Furthermore, he regularly writes for The Conversation among other outlets.

Economic Theory, Game Theory, Public Economics, Evolutionary Game Theory, Political Economy, Helath Economics