PhD research topics

Applications are welcomed in all Economics topics. We particularly welcome applications from candidates with research interests in the following speciality areas of our research-active staff:

Behavioural Economics

• Behavioural Health Economics and Policy
• Behavioural Labour and Organisational Economics
• Decisions under Risk and Uncertainty
• Experimental and Behavioural analyses of markets
• Charitable Behaviour
• Analysis of Conflict and Conflict Resolution
• Behavioural Welfare Economics (including subjective wellbeing)

Financial Economics and Household Finance

• Banking and financial stability
• Household portfolios
• Household wealth inequality
• Household saving
• Household financial vulnerability and asset accumulation

Gender, Race and Inequality

• Domestic violence
• Discrimination and Wellbeing
• Identity Economics (gender, ethnicity, inequality)
• Wealth inequality and racial wealth gap
• Affirmative Action Policies

Health Economics

• Healthcare and demographics
• Health, wellbeing and employment
• Long-run impact of COVID
• Aversion to inequality in multidimensional wellbeing
• Health state valuation and stated preferences

Industrial Organization 

• Competition Policy
• Innovation, industrial policy and mixed markets
• Networks and Regulation
• Firms Productivity
• Tax compliance and administration

International Economics and Development

• Empirical development economics
• Foreign aid and development finance institutions
• Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth
• Trade models with heterogeneous firms, trade gravity and productivity growth
• Trade policies and public economics

Labour and Education Economics

• Empirical studies on the relationships between labour, health and wellbeing
• Education Economics
• Gender differences in human capital accumulation
• Labour market transitions of (young) workers
• Social mobility
• Vocational education
• Wages, employment and contract type

Macroeconomics

• Open Economy Macroeconomics
• Business Cycles
• Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Modelling
• Labour Market Dynamics
• Search and Matching

Political Economy

• Elections, political ideology, institutions and economic policy
• Immigration: causes and consequences
• Terrorism, public attitudes and behavioural outcomes
• Rent-seeking and other contests

Time Series Econometrics

• Econometric detection of bubbles and crashes
• Specification testing and forecasting in non-linear Econometric/Time-Series models
• Theoretical econometrics and statistical inference

Urban and Environmental Economics

• Environmental economics and environmental policy 
• Environmental reporting
• Real estate economics
• Local labour markets
• Agglomeration externalities
• Spatial distribution of economic activities and innovation
• Transport economics
• Local economic impacts and drivers of internal and external immigration 
• Local and regional determinants of social mobility and inequality
• Levelling-up: drivers of local productivity and growth