Research

• Research
• Research Centres
• Brown Bag
• Micro reading group
• School Seminars
• Discussion Paper Series
• Economics Links

Research at the School of Economics & Finance

The School of Economics & Finance is located in its own building, Castlecliffe, a beautiful listed building, of Edwardian mansion design, on The Scores, overlooking St Andrews Bay. Its full staff complement is 29, including 7 Professors, 5 Readers or Senior Lecturers, and 13 Lecturers, Teaching Fellows, Research Fellows and Research Assistants, including those supported by research grants. All staff are actively engaged in research and publication. The School has a regular programme of seminars for external speakers and several internal staff workshops. Research students are expected to take a full part in these seminar and workshop activities, and also attend further research training courses.

Excellence in Research & Teaching

The School of Economics & Finance aims to be a high quality unit in a high quality University. In The Times Good University Guide 2006, St Andrews is ranked seventh in the UK. Its teaching quality was ranked third. Our School research was highly rated in the last Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Economics was graded at a 4, confirming the standing of our research at the international level. It also received high ratings for its teaching quality ("Excellent" for Economics). In The Times rankings for 2006, Economics is rated thirteenth in the UK, and first in Scotland.

Economics & Finance are broad and important research fields which make contact with almost all aspects of human activity: running a business, purchasing stocks and bonds, managing a charity, taking on a job, getting married, regulating an industry, administering a loan and so on. Despite this diversity, their key concept is simple: economic agents are self-seeking. The strength of economics and finance as research disciplines is that this simple and unifying concept can be rigorously applied in many areas. These extend from core areas like the macro-economy, the firm and the household to areas such as social choice, the environment, quality of life, the business cycle and inflation. Such research allows free rein to new ideas, of both the theoretical and empirical variety.

Special Strengths

• Microeconomics (especially the Organisation of Industry; Labour Economics; R&D)
• Macroeconomics (especially Macro-dynamics; Stochastic and Deterministic GE models; Financial and Monetary Economics)