Research in the Agri-Environmental Economics cluster features both the development of new methodologies for the economic analysis of natural resource-based industries, and the application of such methodologies to analyse specific research issues in these industries. This analytically strong group of economists works primarily on the economic development of the European Union and specifically on the role, impact and performance of its agricultural and food industries (Alastair Bailey, Sophia Davidova). An additional component of this research programme is the role of government policy in relation to the problems both of environmental damage in the agricultural landscape and of illness and nutrition in the ‘farm-to-fork’ food supply chain (Iain Fraser, Rob Fraser). Competitively-won research projects by economists in the group are funded by DEFRA and a range of other funding providers.

The group supports the activities of the School’s Centre for European Agri-environmental Studies (Director: Sophia Davidova), including organising symposiums and workshops, and supporting PhD students.

The research achievements of this group are substantial, measured on both an inputs and an outputs basis, and the journal publications of the staff have received considerable user recognition. As a consequence of their research achievements, the external profile and policy impact of this group, both nationally (UK government) and internationally (EU and World Bank), has been substantial. On this basis, the 2008 RAE ‘assessed that this group provides a world-leading level of engagement and impact on a significant user community’.

The macroeconomics, growth and finance group has developed strongly in the past few years, with a group of seven staff members and a large number of PhD students. The group includes experts in many areas of macroeconomics, such as macroeconomic theory, macroeconometrics, growth theory, computational methods, international macroeconomics and financial economics.

Hans-Martin Krolzig’s work on macroeconometric theory focuses on model selection algorithms, Markov-Switching models of the business cycle, and applied macroeconometric models. Jagjit Chadha is an expert on monetary policy and on the links between financial markets and macroeconomic performance. Miguel León-Ledesma is an expert on growth theory and international macroeconomics, and has worked extensively on the role of factor substitution in macro models.

Keisuke Otsu, Mathan Satchi and Katsuyuki Shibayama work on theoretical models of business cycles, labour market search and financial sources of economic fluctuations using computational and analytical techniques. There is a significant monetary and financial policy element in this research and interest in quantitative theory, or so-called DSGE models (Jagjit Chadha, Mathan Satchi and Katsuyuki Shibayama). Tony Thirlwall’s work focuses mainly on macroeconomic issues for developing countries and along with Miguel León-Ledesma there is a strong caucus of work with PhD students on growth theory and empirics.

The group developed strong links with prestigious international research and policy institutions (including the European Commission, ECB, BIS, BoE, ADB, IMF, UNCTAD and several central banks). Collaborative work with other institutions is an important aspect of the group, with important research collaborations with universities in the UK, US, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The labour and education economics group is a long-standing strength of the School, with contributions from Alan Carruth, Bill Collier, Amanda Gosling, Alex Klein, John Peirson, Matloob Piracha and Yu Zhu. Their research contributes in the areas of wage distrbutions, skills and job quality, education, migration and trade.

Changing sectoral and gender wage differentials are being researched by Amanda Gosling, who also works on the impact of employment selection effects on estimates of wage differentials. Wage differentials across industry are the focus of work by Alan Carruth and Bill Collier, while Bill Collier and John Peirson have shown that improvement in the training of the labour force and initial education levels of employees have strong effects on the performance and survival of firms.

Alex Klein’s research has been focused on the role of children’s education in the family migration-decision making and relationships between the family structure and the occupation of its children in a late-industrialising economy context. Matloob Piracha researches different aspects of migration and remittances within source and host country perspectives.

Yu Zhu has been developing work on the college premium and returns to independent education, aided by a Nuffield Foundation grant, while Bill Collier, Amanda Gosling and Yu Zhu have been developing research on the economics of the family.

The microeconomic theory group has expertise in public economics, game theory, industrial organisation, behavioural economics and the economics of uncertainty.

Chris Heady has been working extensively in the area of public economics, mainly on tax policy issues, and has provided tax policy advice to a number of OECD countries as well as China and Pakistan. John Peirson has been working on the economics of gambling and uncertainty and has long-standing interests in the economics of transport and energy. He has advised the Department for Transport on road externalities, the Technology Strategy Board on road congestion, and the Philippines Government on electricity privatisation. Maria Garcia-Alonso has worked in the area of industrial organisation with recent work focusing on international trade and government procurement with particular applications in defence and peace economics, and health economics.

Edward Cartwright has primarily worked on social learning, conformity and large games with more recent work on public goods and leadership in coordination games. Anna Stepanova’s research has been in industrial organisation, focusing on research and development, mergers and pice-leadership.

Sylvain Barde is working on information theoretic modelling techniques for predicting economic outcomes in situations where the preferences or interactions of agents are unobservable. Alex Klein has interests in economic history and the effects of religious denomination on economic behaviour.

In recent years, the group has become active in experimental economics with projects funded by the ESRC and British Academy. The group is also interdisciplinary in its outlook with links to the University's Centre for the Study of Group Processes and Centre for Reasoning.

Work on development economics focuses on growth, trade, the balance of payments, and different aspects of migration and remittances on growth in LDCs. Applied studies focusing on particular developing countries spans this body of work.

Miguel León-Ledesma contributes with work on growth and distribution, and several aspects of macroeconomics for developing countries, especially real exchange rate determination. His current work includes research on the choice of techniques of production, sectoral effects of recessions, and the roel of external constraints on current account and real exchange rates in developing countries.

Matloob Piracha has explored the impact of remittances on several East European countries and has been the lead economic advisor on the DFID’s Regional Migration Programme in Central Asia. His ongoing work includes the analysis of the patterns of migration and impact of remittances on several North African and other developing countries.

Tony Thirlwall is the author of the major textbook Economics of Development: Theory and Evidence, which is now in its 9th edition and a number of other books in the development field. He has done extensive work on growth and the balance of payments and currently works on the role of industrial structure for growth and on the impact of trade liveralisation on the balance of payments.

Yu Zhu has recently studied the impact of rural-to-urban migration on consumption and savings in China. He is also interested in health and education issues in developing countries in general.

This cluster has spawned valuable research collaboration with PhD students, many of whom have come from developing countries. The group has close links with international development organisations. Its members have acted as consultants for the World Bank, OECD, UNCTAD, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, and the Pacific Islands Development Programme.

Transport and regional economics continues to be emphasised with a specialist research centre (CERTE) directed by Roger Vickerman. Particular strengths are the regional impact of transport investments, the economic evaluation of infrastructure, regulation and alternative funding models, including the economics of Public-Private Partnerships. Earlier research by John Peirson and Roger Vickerman on the costs of transport and on accidents contributed to the development of European Commission work on pricing. This work has high policy-relevance and is mainly conducted jointly with other leading research groups in the EU and funded by the European Commission, through the Framework Programmes or other research initiatives such as ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network) or through the STELLA-STAR joint research programme on strategic transport research with the US National Science Foundation. This has led to considerable input to policy formation at international level.