We are home to five distinct research groups, each making significant contributions across the spectrum of economics. Each group focuses on their unique areas of research while sharing a common commitment to produce world-impacting research grounded in real-world economics. To help you better understand our work, we’ve broken down the nature of each group into three fundamental questions: ‘What’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’.

  • ‘What’ elucidates the focus areas of each group, providing you with a snapshot of their primary research interests.
  • ‘Why’ addresses the key goals and motivations that drive the group’s research, highlighting the real-world problems that they aim to solve.
  • ‘How’ illustrates the methods, techniques, and approaches employed by the group to conduct their research, giving you an insight into their rigorous academic processes.
Applied Econometrics and Finance Group
  • What: The Applied Econometrics and Finance Group is our largest research group, and its work is fundamentally concerned with the application of statistical methods to economic data. It covers a wide spectrum of research areas from financial econometrics and macroeconomics to environmental and natural resource economics.
  • Why: The group exists to probe and decipher complex economic phenomena and devise innovative solutions. It seeks to address issues such as environmental attitudes, behavioural economics in environmental policy, and the interplay between economic growth, banking economics, and labour, population, and health economics.
  • How: By conducting cutting-edge research projects on topics like equity crowdfunding, option pricing, high-frequency data modelling, volatility modelling, and monetary policy design, this group delivers impactful insights to guide policy and economic decision-making.
Behavioural Economics Group
  • What: This group is at the forefront of the field, pioneering innovative approaches that are reshaping the discipline. They have established seminal theories in choice under risk and uncertainty and continue to drive the evolution of behavioural economics with a human-centred focus.
  • Why: The focus of this group is to provide understanding on how people make decisions, especially under risk and uncertainty. The group is developing a new “science of the behavioural consumer” to help inform policy and industry practices.
  • How: By conducting lab-based experiments and field studies on consumer reactions to time-limited offers, common pricing standards, choice overload, and perceptions of fairness. They also study negotiation processes and how people understand information presented to them, often working directly with national and international users of behavioural economics research.
Environment, Resources, and Conflict Research Group
  • What: This group takes an interdisciplinary approach to unravel critical issues straddling environmental and resource economics, and conflict studies. They navigate the intersections of these domains, generating insights that redefine our understanding of these interconnected areas of economics.
  • Why: The goal is to understand the interaction between environmental policy, energy and natural resource use, and how these factors contribute to conflict. Their research also explores economics of migration, group identity and dynamics, and group bargaining and coordination.
  • How: They use a blend of research methodologies, including lab and field experiments, micro- and macroeconometric data analysis, historical document analysis, and formal theoretical modelling, to provide comprehensive insights. They collaborate closely with academic and non-academic partners globally.
Economic Theory Group
  • What: This group is committed to rigorous theoretical analysis. They delve into diverse areas of economics, drawing from formal models and theoretical constructs to provide profound contributions that enrich our comprehension of economic behaviour and systems.
  • Why: The goal is to develop stylised models that dissect complex economic problems. By unlocking a deeper understanding of economic behaviour, they aim to shape informed decision-making processes across diverse economic sectors.
  • How: By utilising a range of methodological approaches, they study areas such as decision theory, dynamic macroeconomics, economics of information, financial economics, game theory, and more.
Industrial Economics Group
  • What: This group is dedicated to conducting research on theoretical and applied facets of industrial economics, competition policy, and regulation. Embedded within the Centre for Competition Policy, their work elucidates competitive dynamics, regulatory implications, and intricacies of the industrial economy.
  • Why: The goal is to deepen our comprehension of industry practices and competition policies. They strive to inform and influence their development, contributing to more effective and efficient markets that better serve society.
  • How: They maintain strong connections with competition agencies and regulatory bodies, engaging with practitioners to both inform research and disseminate results. Their work informs commissioned reports, consultation responses, and contributes to European Commission and UK Competition guidelines. They also work on resource allocation within competition agencies.

You can find a list of publications by clicking on this link.