Miguel Portela is a PhD in Economics by Tinbergen Institute/University of Amsterdam, 2007. He is currently Associate Professor with Habilitation at Universidade do Minho, and Vice Director of its Doctoral Programme in Economics. He is also affiliated with NIPE/U Minho, CIPES, and IZA, Bonn. He has an ongoing collaboration with the Bank of Portugal. His research interests lie in the areas of labor economics, economics of education, and applied econometrics. He counts several papers, books, and book chapters, and has been published in Econometrica, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Regional Studies and Studies in Higher Education. His work has been cited in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review and Labour Economics, among others. He has ongoing research collaborations across different countries, leads and integrates research teams working in financed projects, and has written policy-oriented reports on Minimum Wage, Education, and Employment in the Portuguese labor market. He has also consultancy experience, both for private as well as public institutions.

He joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in April 2004 and became a Research Fellow in March 2009.