Atanas Christev received a Ph.D. in economics from Kansas State University in 2003. He is currently Lecturer in Economics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. His research focuses on structural models of firm adjustment in transition, including dynamic labor demand, asymmetric adjustment costs, employment and wage mobility; unemployment dynamics, and dynamic monopsony models. In addition, he has worked on learning and rationality in macroeconomics, and time-series econometrics.

He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation (CERT) and has visited University of Potsdam, St. Andrews University, EERC Kiev, and University of Bologna.
His work has appeared in Global Finance Journal, the Journal of Comparative Economics, Comparative Economic Studies.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in March 2004.