2025 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Dimitrije Ruzic, INSEAD

Dimitrije Ruzic
INSEAD

“Professor Dimitrije Ruzic is, without a doubt, the most engaging professor we have had during our MBA program at INSEAD. Each class was meticulously designed to offer incredible insights into macroeconomic theory while vividly demonstrating its real-life applications. Dimitrije’s approach is uniquely effective; prior to each session, he provided pre-recorded primers that clearly explained essential theoretical concepts, ensuring that every student, regardless of their economics background, arrived prepared. In class, he masterfully crafted compelling narratives, seamlessly integrating current articles from the Financial Times and live data from central bank websites. This innovative approach transformed complex economic theories into tangible, real-world lessons unfolding before our eyes. The central insights from Dimitrije’s classes are so impactful and clearly articulated that they are the kind we will very likely remember even ten years from now. Even for those of us who studied economics during our undergraduate degrees, Dimitrije’s exceptional ability to weave theory with contemporary reality made each 90-minute session feel like a masterfully scripted TED Talk, consistently leaving us intellectually stimulated.” – Mario Sosa, MBA

Dimitrije Ruzic, 36, is an Assistant Professor of Economics at INSEAD. 

His research interests span macroeconomics and international trade. He works to understand how differences across firms shape macroeconomic outcomes. To that effect, his publications explore questions related to productivity and growth, inequality, and the spillovers of firm reputation.

He teaches about the global economic environment to MBA and executive audiences in a variety of settings. His efforts to make complex economic ideas accessible have garnered him the Dean’s commendation for excellence in teaching on multiple occasions. 

Along the way, he has also been a visiting professor and scholar at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and San Francisco. 

If you cannot find him in his office, please look around the Fontainebleau forest—he might be bouldering.

BACKGROUND

At current institution since what year? 2018

Education:  A.B. in Economics, Harvard College; M.Sc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, London School of Economics; Ph.D. in Economics, University of Michigan

List of MBA courses you currently teach: Macroeconomics in the Global Economy

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when… I learned that there is a business school campus in the middle of the Fontainebleau forest! 

In truth, neither my upbringing in Serbia nor my subsequent studies in the United States or the United Kingdom offered meaningful glimpses into business-school careers. Even as I was completing my PhD, I was relatively unaware and uninformed about what a future at a business school might look like; I imagined I would embark on a career in a more traditional university department or a policy institution.

But I’m deeply grateful for the curious series of events that led me to INSEAD! And I’ve very much enjoyed integrating into this academic community. In particular, I’ve found teaching in the MBA program to be engaging and intellectually stimulating in a way I did not anticipate. Many of the topics I teach are ones I understand through the lens of formal logic and mathematics. Figuring out how to translate those formal ideas into a great story, to recognize them in the right newspaper headline, or to craft them into a discussion befitting a business-school class requires a fair bit of intellectual creativity.

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? One project I’m working on examines the role of big firms in long-run economic growth. Many modern-day corporate giants—from Microsoft to Meta to Google—have run afoul of antitrust laws and regulators concerned that large firms might use their size in ways that adversely impact consumers, competition and the broader economy. Yet firm size can also reflect the innovation and productivity that underpin the growth in living standards. So, should we think of these big firms as superstars or as supervillains?

Using firm-level historical data from South Korea, my coauthors and I document a novel fact: the 33 largest firms in 1972 produced about 10% of South Korean manufacturing output, while the 33 largest firms in 2011 produced almost 30%. Yet this increase in production concentration coincided with transformative growth—often called a “growth miracle”—marked by a 10-fold increase in South Korean living standards. We quantify both the productive virtues and the distortive vices of large firms, and find that most of the emergence of South Korea’s largest firms is due to their exceptional productivity growth relative to their smaller domestic peers. Without the exceptional performance of its largest firms, South Korea would have been less well off, suggesting—at least in this historical context—that the largest Korean firms were more superstars than supervillains.

If I weren’t a business school professor… I’d try and live up to the superlative my high school classmates bestowed upon me: “Most likely to drop out of an Ivy League school and open up a bakery.”

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I believe in the importance of what I teach. 

I think managers—and business leaders more broadly—should be able to open up the morning’s newspaper and understand how the (macro)economic forces playing out on those front pages matter for business decisions. Moreover, I think that understanding is within reach for everyone. Even for those with no prior economic training. 

One word that describes my first time teaching: Thrilling. Excitement mixed with a bit of anxiety.

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor:  Embrace uncertainty. Class can feel a bit like improv theatre. You might have a perfect script and a polished set of slides… and, within five minutes, someone derails it with a question about Bitcoin, Taylor Swift, or both. And that’s when the real teaching begins.

Professor I most admire and why: Professor McGonagall. “Why is it, when something happens, it is always you three?”

TEACHING MBA STUDENTS

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? The sheer breadth of personal and professional experiences that students bring to an amphitheater is remarkable. INSEAD presents a rare, hyper-international setting where I can ask “Who here has participated in a bank run?” or “Can someone give me an example of a capital control?” and, chances are, I am about to learn something interesting and new.

What is most challenging? Making ideas and discussions engaging to groups with vastly different backgrounds can be challenging. If you take an economic model and translate it into a story, you might entice the artist but frustrate the engineer. If a discussion is too technical for too long, you risk the opposite. Figuring out how to strike the right balance is a continuous learning process. And what might be the right balance for one group of students will inevitably require adjustment for another.

In one word, describe your favorite type of student: Curious.

In one word, describe your least favorite type of student: Jaded.

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… Fair.

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

What are your hobbies? Climbing. Diving. Reading (fiction).

How will you spend your summer? Too quickly.

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Under the water. Preferably within easy distance of a coral reef. 

Favorite book(s): Frank Herbert’s Dune and Robert Graves’s I, Claudius.

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. I found the visuals stunning. And I was particularly moved by Hans Zimmer’s score for the film: it was otherworldly, capturing much of what fascinated me about the book and that universe when I first encountered it years ago.

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? My Spotify Wrapped at the end of every year is a source of no small embarrassment—so I’ll invoke my right against self-incrimination!

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… Current (and prospective) policymakers in attendance. Good management should not be a stranger to public organizations.

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… not scheduling meetings that could have been emails.

I’m grateful for… Gibanica. And to all the friends and family who have shared it with me over the years.

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