Economics news

Economics and migration expert awarded OBE in Queen’s Birthday Honours

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Jackline Wahba has been awarded an OBE for services to Economic Policy.

Call for applications – 3 fully funded PhD scholarships

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

��ɫ��Ƶ Econometrics Workshop 2018

Thu, 24 May 2018 00:00:00 +0100

The 2018 ��ɫ��Ƶ Econometrics Workshop took place on May 18.

Presentation at the 2018 Workshop in Time Series Econometrics

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Research article by Economics Professors features in the New York Times

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0100

��ɫ��Ƶ lecturer elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0100

May 22-23: 3rd Workshop on the Economics of Migration

Wed, 17 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Professor presents at Conference in the Netherlands

Tue, 16 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

May 15-16: Review of Economic Studies Tour 2017 takes place in ��ɫ��Ƶ

Tue, 09 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

May 4-5: International Workshop on Finance and Econometrics

Thu, 04 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Getting In and Getting Through: Ex Ante Beliefs and Counterfactual Outcomes in Centralized College Admissions (joint work with Edwin Leuven, University of Oslo)

This paper studies belief accuracy in a centralized higher‑education admissions system using Norwegian data that combine a large pre‑admission expectations survey with administrative records on offers, enrollment, and completion. Exploiting program‑specific admission cutoffs within a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, the authors compare applicants’ subjective beliefs with objective counterfactual outcomes at the admission margin. The results show that enrollment forecast errors are mainly driven by mistaken beliefs about offer probabilities, while beliefs about enrollment conditional on an offer are relatively accurate. For completion outcomes, applicants display substantial persistence optimism, overestimating completion conditional on enrollment under both access states. These belief errors have economically meaningful implications for choices and rankings of study programs.

For further details, please consult the department website (Economics Seminars, UoS) or contact Dr Chaowen Zheng.

Seminar: Efficiency and collusion-proofness in dynamic mechanism design

Alexander Teytelboym will present joint work entitled “Efficiency and collusion-proofness in dynamic mechanism design” (with Endre Csóka, Heng Liu, and Alexander Rodivilov).

This paper studies dynamic mechanisms with Markovian private information in both transferable utility (TU) and non-transferable utility (NTU) settings. The authors propose a Guaranteed Utility Mechanism (GUM) that is efficient, budget-balanced, and collusion-proof in the TU setting, and approximately efficient and collusion-proof in the NTU setting. In both frameworks, the mechanism satisfies dynamic participation constraints, is robust to the observability of past types, and accommodates private actions. In contrast, canonical dynamic mechanisms either eliminate all efficient equilibria in TU settings or feature error bounds in NTU settings that are highly sensitive to the size of the type space.

For further details, please consult the department website ( Economics Seminars, UoS ) or contact Dr Chaowen Zheng/ Dr Max Kwiek.

Seminar: Production Function Estimation Using Subjective Expectations Data

Department Seminar: Prof. Áureo de Paula (University College London) - 29 April 2026

This paper introduces a new approach to estimating production functions that exploits firms’ subjective expectations of future output and inputs. By relaxing the strong assumptions on input choices required by standard estimators in the Olley and Pakes (1996) tradition, the proposed method allows for consistent estimation even in very short panels, including a single cross‑section. Monte Carlo simulations show that the estimator performs particularly well when firms’ material input choices are subject to optimisation error. An application to UK data finds that the proposed approach delivers results that are similar to or more credible than commonly used alternatives, with larger differences in industries where input optimisation is more difficult. The implied measures of total factor productivity are also more strongly associated with future employment growth, highlighting the importance of properly accounting for input endogeneity.

For further details, please consult the department website (Economics Seminars, UoS) or contact Dr Chaowen Zheng.

Seminar: Compromises in Collective Choice: the Veto Solution

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. Hervé Moulin (University of Glasgow) for a departmental research seminar on Wednesday 6 May 2026, from 14:00 to 15:00, in Room 58/4121. The seminar will also be available online.

Abstract

The tyranny of the majority disqualifies the Condorcet consistency principle in many contexts (typically not political elections) where individual agents (live persons or abstract criteria) seek a compromise between their different opinions. The Veto Core (Moulin 1981) finds such compromises by measuring the objections by coalitions of any size to each outcome, and eliminating those eliciting a "more than proportional" objection. Our first result generalises the VC to choice problems with innate sets of agents and/or outcomes, and rules that are neither Anonymous nor Neutral. As a choice rule the VC enjoys very strong axiomatic properties: Maskin Monotonicity, Population Consistency and (the new) Clone Responsiveness. It typically selects a substantial short list rather than a deterministic choice. A natural selection from VC chooses the outcome(s) minimising the largest coalitional objection; it is Monotonic but loses the three strong properties above.

For further details, please consult the Economics Department website (Economics Seminars, UoS), follow us on X (Twitter: @UoS_Economics), Bluesky (@sotonecon.bsky.social), and LinkedIn (Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ) or contact the seminar organiser (Chaowen Zheng).

Seminar: Stories about sexual harassment: A large-scale study of information rejection and recall

The Economics Department and GAIN are pleased to host Prof. Johanna Rickne for a joint seminar on Monday 11 May 2026, from 13:00 to 14:15, in Room 8011, Building 100. This seminar is financially supported by GAIN.

Abstract

Sexual harassment is widespread and difficult to prevent. We study how people process and retain the most common type of information about this social problem. Norwegian respondents in a large survey (N = 24,992) evaluate a short story from the workplace of a fictional acquaintance. The results uncover reasons why people fail to identify the event as morally wrongful sexual harassment. Such information rejection occurs when the event is framed as an "accusation" rather than victimization, when the victim is male, and when the harassment behaviour is verbal rather than physical. Individuals who reject the story in the survey experiment recall hearing fewer stories about sexual harassment in their own lives. A descriptive analysis suggests that prior exposure to victim-focused stories improves processing of new information, while exposure to accusation-focused stories may worsen it. These findings provide a new explanation for the persistence of sexual harassment and offer new ideas for prevention.

For further details, please follow us on X (Twitter: @UoS_Economics), Bluesky (@sotonecon.bsky.social), and LinkedIn (Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ).

5th Annual Southern PhD Economics Conference (ASPEC)

The Economics Department is pleased to announce that the ��ɫ��Ƶ will host the 5th Annual Southern PhD Economics Conference (ASPEC) on 12 May 2026 as a one-day in-person workshop.

ASPEC is supported by the Economics departments of Oxford Brookes University, City University of London, University of East Anglia, Royal Holloway, Middlesex University, University of Reading, ��ɫ��Ƶ, University of Sussex, and University of Essex. This year, ASPEC welcomes papers from all areas of Economics and Quantitative Social Sciences, with PhD students presenting to an interdisciplinary audience.

Keynote Speakers

Johanna Rickne (SOFI, Stockholm University): Sexual Harassment and Women's Academic Careers — 11:00 am
Yves Zenou (Monash University): How Social Interactions Shape Behaviour — 16:00 pm

Please read the ASPEC Conference Programme for further details. For any queries, please contact Dr. Emanuela Lotti (E.Lotti@soton.ac.uk) or Dr. Alessandro Mennuni (Alessandro.Mennuni@soton.ac.uk).

Seminar: Disclosure and the Pace of Drug Development

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. Florian Ederer (Boston University) for a departmental research seminar on Wednesday 13th May 2026 from 11:00 to 12:00. The seminar will also be available online.

Prof. Ederer will present "Disclosure and the Pace of Drug Development", joint work with Colleen Cunningham (University of Utah), Charles Hodgson (Yale Department of Economics), and Zhichun Wang (Yale Department of Economics).

Abstract

Policies that mandate disclosure of innovative project outcomes aim to increase innovation by limiting wasteful duplicative innovation. Yet, such policies change not only the ex-post information environment but also firms' ex-ante innovation incentives. Firms may slow down their own innovation efforts in anticipation of increased disclosure by others. We examine the innovation-related impacts of the 2017 FDA Final Rule amendment, which mandates disclosure of clinical trial results for pharmaceutical firms. We show that the policy hastened and increased disclosure of results for clinical trials post-completion, but also increased the time to completion of clinical trials, the time between early phases of clinical trials, and delays in development related investments. We provide evidence consistent with mandated disclosure leading firms to wait to learn from their competitors. Our results suggest that mandating disclosure may slow innovation when there is value to waiting.

Seminar: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. Paula Onuchic (LSE) for a departmental research seminar on Wednesday 13th May 2026 from 14:00 to 15:00, online via Teams. Prof. Onuchic will present "Separating the Wheat from the Chaff", joint work with Johannes Hörner (Toulouse School of Economics).

Abstract

We study a reputational cheap-talk environment in which a judge, who is privately and imperfectly informed about a state, must choose between two speakers of unknown reliability. Exactly one speaker is an expert who perfectly observes the state, while the other is a quack with no information. Both speakers seek to be selected, while the judge wishes to identify the expert. We show that, quite generally, there is an equilibrium in which the expert is honest, yet the judge favours more extreme signals. This bias toward extremism does not induce exaggeration by the expert, but instead sustains truthful communication. The quack strategically mimics the expert's speech, and sometimes panders to the judge's prior. We show that learning in this environment exhibits an "information begets information" property: judges with more precise private information are more likely to identify the expert and learn the true state, implying that exposure to competing sources of uncertain reliability may amplify informational inequality across audiences.

Seminar: Dynamic Investment in Teamwork Skill

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. David Gill (Purdue University) for a departmental research seminar on Monday 18 May 2026, from 14:00 to 15:00, in Room 58/4121, available also online via Teams. Prof. Gill will present "Dynamic Investment in Teamwork Skill: Theory and Experimental Evidence", joint work with Victoria Prowse (Purdue University) and J. Lucas Reddinger (Purdue University).

Abstract

Teamwork and collaboration are increasingly important. To understand the dynamics of teamwork skill formation, we provide the first systematic analysis of dynamic investment in teamwork skill. First, adopting a dynamic game approach, we develop a novel theoretical framework where investment in team skill creates persistent benefits and externalities for teammates, but where investment is risky because the benefits depend on successful team coordination. Second, we take this framework to the laboratory to study empirically the factors that influence dynamic investment in team skill. We find underinvestment compared to the efficient benchmark. However, investment in team skill responds strongly to incentives, in line with specific patterns predicted by our theory. We also find that people's theory of mind and propensity to coordinate predict how much they invest in team skill. We conclude that careful design of team incentives and selection of team members can facilitate the dynamic development of teamwork skills.

Seminar: Information Aggregation with AI Agents

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. Spyros Galanis (Durham University Business School) for a departmental research seminar on Tuesday 19th May 2026 from 13:00 to 14:00, in room 58/4121 and also available online via Teams. Prof. Galanis will present " Information Aggregation with AI Agents".

Abstract

Can Large Language Models (AI agents) aggregate dispersed private information through trading and reason about the knowledge of others by observing price movements? We conduct a controlled experiment where AI agents trade in a prediction market after receiving private signals, measuring information aggregation by the log error of the last price. We find that although the median market is effective overall at aggregating information, increasing the complexity of the information structure has a significant and negative impact, suggesting that AI agents suffer from the same limitations as humans when reasoning about others. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, information aggregation remains unaffected by allowing cheap talk communication, changing the duration of the market or initial price, and strategic prompting---thus demonstrating that prediction markets are robust and effective. We establish that “smarter” AI agents perform better at aggregation, but this advantage is limited to preventing catastrophic mispricings of the security rather than improving the performance of the median market. Finally, we find that cheap talk reduces trading volume, whereas being smarter than one's competitors increases profits.

For further details, please consult the Economics Department website ( Economics Seminars, UoS), follow us on X (Twitter: @UoS_Economics), Bluesky (@sotonecon.bsky.social), and LinkedIn (Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ), or contact the seminar organiser (Chaowen Zheng).

Call for Expressions of Interest – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action is a funding scheme that supports researcher mobility. European Postdoctoral Fellowships offer a competitive salary, mobility and family allowances, plus a research budget to support a research project, advanced training and knowledge exchange at the host institution (��ɫ��Ƶ). The fellowship is for 24 months.

Applicants are expected to have an excellent CV and a promising publication record. They must hold a PhD at the Horizon Europe MSCA PF Call deadline of September 9, 2026 (PhD must be awarded by the Call deadline), have a maximum of 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research post-PhD, and must not have spent (or carried out their main activities for) more than 12 months in the United Kingdom in the three years prior to the Call deadline. No nationality requirements apply. For the final eligibility criteria, full details of the funding scheme and the application process, please refer to the official call documents, including the Work Programme.

We invite proposals in the following fields (including, but not limited to):

Macroeconomics and International Economics (e.g. monetary and fiscal policy, business cycles, international trade, macro-financial linkages)
Microeconomic Theory and Behavioural Economics (e.g. game theory, decision-making, experimental and behavioural approaches)
Applied Microeconomics (e.g. education, health, labour economics, gender, migration, inequality)
Development, Political, and Public Economics (e.g. development economics, institutions, voting behaviour, public policy, crime and conflict)
Industrial Organisation and Market Analysis (e.g. firm behaviour, competition, regulation, digital and environmental markets)
Econometrics and Data Methods (e.g. causal inference, experimental methods, survey design, and applications of novel data sources including AI)

Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to explore the Department's research profile and identify potential supervisors whose interests align with their proposed project before submitting an expression of interest.

Steps to Follow and Important Deadlines

By June 15, 2026 – To express your interest, please complete this form, including the upload of: (i) a two-page research proposal summary; and (ii) your CV. Submitted proposals will be reviewed for eligibility and circulated to relevant colleagues in the Department.
By June 29, 2026 – Selected applicants will be notified and matched with a supervisor. The supervisor will act as the main point of contact, though co-supervisors may also be involved.

Seminar: Trade Policy Meets Digital Technologies: How Digitalization of Trade Procedures Affects Firms’ Exports

The Economics Department is pleased to host Prof. Alejandro Graziano (University of Nottingham) for a departmental research seminar on Wednesday 10 June 2026, from 14:00 to 15:00, in Room 58/4121, available also online via Teams. Prof. Graziano will present "Trade Policy Meets Digital Technologies: How Digitalization of Trade Procedures Affects Firms’ Exports", joint work with Jerónimo Carballo (University of Colorado), Georg Schaur (University of Tennessee) and Christian Volpe Martincus (Inter-American Development Bank).

Abstract

Firms intending to export must comply with border regulations that require obtaining, completing, and submitting multiple documents before shipments can be authorized. The digitalization of these procedures can substantially reduce compliance burdens and facilitate firms' participation in international markets. In this paper, we examine this proposition by studying the introduction of an electronic trade single window system in Costa Rica, which allowed firms to submit all required information through a single online platform. We estimate the effects of the electronic single window using highly disaggregated firm-level export data and exploiting its gradual phase-in across products and customs offices between 2007 and 2016. Results indicate that the adoption of the system increased both total exports and the number of exporting firms. At the firm level, exports expanded through more frequent and larger shipments, with particularly strong effects for small and rural firms. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these effects, we combine a trade model featuring transaction-level fixed costs and auxiliary transaction-level data to investigate the extent to which the electronic single window reduced the fixed costs associated with export transactions.

Strong NSS results for ��ɫ��Ƶ Economics

Particularly strong performances were recorded in Organisation and Management (90.6%), Learning Resources (90.4%), and Teaching on my Course (87.4%), while notable year-on-year improvements were seen in Academic Support, Learning Resources, and Organisation and Management.

The results reflect the department's ongoing commitment to providing a high-quality learning experience and to listening and responding to student feedback. We are grateful to all students who took part in the survey and shared their views, helping us identify both our strengths and areas for further development.

More information on the NSS results can be found here.

Learn more about our courses and student opportunities.

New Publication Alert: Academic Performance, Background and Pre-existing Quantitative Skills of Economics Starters: Mind the Gap!

��ɫ��Ƶ the Paper

This study explores differences in early academic performance among students beginning economics degrees, focusing on factors such as gender, ethnicity, home versus overseas status, and socioeconomic background. Drawing on data from more than 1,000 students across three cohorts, the authors analyse diagnostic test scores, assessment results, and demographic characteristics to better understand the drivers of attainment gaps.

The findings reveal substantial differences in academic performance between home and overseas students and across ethnic groups. In contrast, there is limited evidence of performance differences by gender or socioeconomic status, with two notable exceptions: an advantage for state-school students over privately educated students and a male advantage in Microeconomics among home students.

A key contribution of the study is its demonstration that much of the observed variation in academic outcomes can be explained by pre-existing quantitative skills and prior knowledge. Once these factors are taken into account, many attainment gaps are significantly reduced or disappear altogether. However, some differences persist, particularly among overseas students and certain ethnic groups, suggesting that language-related barriers may also play an important role.

The research highlights the value of targeted support and early interventions at university entry to promote equal opportunities and improve student success in economics education.

📖 Read the full paper here.

Congratulations to Thomas, Emanuela, and Panagiotis on this important contribution.

New Publication: International Insights into the Academic Mindset of Economics Students

The article, "International Insights into the Academic Mindset of Economics Students," is the result of a large international collaboration supported by the Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE). The study explores how economics students' academic mindsets develop over the course of a teaching term and how these outcomes vary across countries, institutions, and learning environments.

The research draws on data collected from 1,188 students, 13 instructors, 18 economics modules, and 11 universities across eight countries during the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. Students were surveyed at the beginning and end of the term, allowing researchers to examine changes in four key dimensions of academic mindset: belonging, self-efficacy, growth mindset, and perceived relevance of economics.

Abstract

This paper investigates the academic mindset of economics students across eight countries using a large-scale dataset collected through the Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE) in 2023/24 and 2024/25. Surveys from 1188 students and 13 instructors across 18 modules at 11 universities outside the United States measured four dimensions of academic mindset - belonging, self-efficacy, growth mindset, and perceived relevance - at the start and end of a teaching term. We find that students’ mindsets are dynamic and context-dependent rather than uniformly improving over time. While perceptions of belonging within economics and the discipline’s relevance tended to increase, general self-efficacy and beliefs about the accessibility of economics declined during the academic term. Gender consistently emerged as an important source of heterogeneity: non-male students reported lower self-efficacy and weaker perceived relevance of economics, with several gaps remaining evident by term’s end. Pedagogical context was also associated with outcomes: active learning environments and intermediate-level courses were often linked to stronger mindset measures, while larger institutions and later academic years were sometimes associated with weaker outcomes. Cross-national variation was substantial.

These results highlight that student self-efficacy and identity with economics are associated not only with individual characteristics but also with pedagogical practice and institutional context. The findings point to the potential value of inclusive, interactive teaching and culturally sensitive approaches to support diverse participation in economics education worldwide.

📖 Read the article here.

Economics news

Economics and migration expert awarded OBE in Queen’s Birthday Honours

Call for applications – 3 fully funded PhD scholarships

��ɫ��Ƶ Econometrics Workshop 2018

Presentation at the 2018 Workshop in Time Series Econometrics

Research article by Economics Professors features in the New York Times

��ɫ��Ƶ lecturer elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

May 22-23: 3rd Workshop on the Economics of Migration

Professor presents at Conference in the Netherlands

May 15-16: Review of Economic Studies Tour 2017 takes place in ��ɫ��Ƶ

May 4-5: International Workshop on Finance and Econometrics

Getting In and Getting Through: Ex Ante Beliefs and Counterfactual Outcomes in Centralized College Admissions (joint work with Edwin Leuven&comma; University of Oslo)

Seminar: Efficiency and collusion-proofness in dynamic mechanism design

Seminar: Production Function Estimation Using Subjective Expectations Data

Department Seminar: Prof. Áureo de Paula (University College London) - 29 April 2026

Seminar: Compromises in Collective Choice: the Veto Solution

Abstract

Seminar: Stories about sexual harassment: A large-scale study of information rejection and recall

Abstract

5th Annual Southern PhD Economics Conference (ASPEC)

Keynote Speakers

Seminar: Disclosure and the Pace of Drug Development

Abstract

Seminar: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Abstract

Seminar: Dynamic Investment in Teamwork Skill

Abstract

Seminar: Information Aggregation with AI Agents

Abstract

Call for Expressions of Interest – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

Seminar: Trade Policy Meets Digital Technologies: How Digitalization of Trade Procedures Affects Firms’ Exports

Abstract

Strong NSS results for ��ɫ��Ƶ Economics

New Publication Alert: Academic Performance&comma; Background and Pre-existing Quantitative Skills of Economics Starters: Mind the Gap!

��ɫ��Ƶ the Paper

New Publication: International Insights into the Academic Mindset of Economics Students

Abstract

Getting In and Getting Through: Ex Ante Beliefs and Counterfactual Outcomes in Centralized College Admissions (joint work with Edwin Leuven, University of Oslo)

New Publication Alert: Academic Performance, Background and Pre-existing Quantitative Skills of Economics Starters: Mind the Gap!