Department News

---

The Complete University Guide 2019 - Economics ranks 3rd after Cambridge and Oxford

We are delighted to announce that the Department of Economics has maintained its 3rd position in the Complete University Guide 2019 with Warwick University coming 9th overall. We are behind Cambridge and Oxford and ahead of UCL and LSE. The CUG subject rankings are based on a methodology using five criteria: entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality, graduate prospects and overall score. Our overall score was 98.5 with Oxford 99.1 and Cambridge 100. Further details, published on 25 April, can be found on the Warwick Press Release page.

Andy Haldane's visit

On Monday, 23 April, the Department of Economics and CAGE had the pleasure of co-hosting a guest lecture with Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, the Executive Director for Monetary Analysis, Research and Statistics and a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee. Andy, Warwick Economics alumnus, has written extensively on domestic and international monetary and financial policy issues and has published over 150 articles and four books. In 2014, TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Andy's talk focused on "Growth, Finance and Institutions" analysing the past and trying to look into the future to predict the role of the institutions facing the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (The Rise of the Robots). The talk was very well received, with many students queuing after the talk to meet Andy in person. Thank you to Arun Advani for looking after our guest before and after the lecture.

Offer Holders Open Day 25 April - thank you

On Wednesday we welcomed 43 out of the 66 prospective students, many of whom were still to make a choice between Warwick and another university by 3 May. A number of talks were delivered that focused on our Economics Degree Programmes (Jeremy and Elizabeth), the student experience (Louise Sodergren) and Careers (Stephanie Redding) and ended with a dynamic taster session delivered by Daniel Sgroi, entitled ‘Using Big Data to Measure Happiness in the Past’. Offer Holders also had a chance to listen to the exciting programme of opportunities offered by three student societies: Economics Society, Economis Summit and Finance Society.

Thank you to those members of staff who attended the lunch prior to the talk. These events are a value conversion opportunity and a ‘final stage’ to promote the University and reflect the reputation and continuing success of our department.

Last call for book purchase requests this year!

If you would like the Library to add one or more new books to stock, please contact me soon, as I am using up the Economics book fund for this academic year. You can request books useful for research or wider reading by students or staff any time; once this year’s fund is spent, I will save the requests until 1st August when more money will be available. I will warn you about any delay, but for now, there is still money to be spent! Thanks very much. Please contact Helen Riley (Helen.Riley@Warwick.ac.uk) for further enquiries.

GDPR Updates

The University is providing all staff with important information on what we need to do to comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Further details and updates can be found on the GDPR Updates page.

Staff Recognition Scheme - April's Nominations

Nominations for April will be considered on Friday 27 April 2018.

More information on the scheme is available here.

Summer Term - Staff Buffet Lunch

In the Summer Term, Staff Buffet Lunch will take place on Thursdays in weeks 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9. Room S2.79, 12.30pm-1.30pm. PhD and MRes Students will be invited to join in Weeks 1 & 9.

Publications, Presentations & Talks

---

Dennis Novy presented research on "Currency Unions, Trade and Heterogeneity"(joint with Natalie Chen) at the University of Oslo.

Arun Advani presented his paper "Creating 'Insurance Networks and Poverty Traps" at the University of Kent on 28 March.

Andy Ferrara presented his paper "Workplace Diversity and Black-White Social Relations" at the Royal Economic Society Conference in Brighton on 28 March, Economic History Society Conference in Staffordshire on 6 April and will present it at the Cliometric Society Conference in Tallahassee on 28 April.

Marcus Miller gave a presentation on "The Blind Monks and the Elephant: Contrasting Narratives of Crisis" at the Bank of Thailand, with co-author Songklod Rastapana in the audience, on 9 April. It was an ideal opportunity to meet a number of Warwick PhDs now active in academia and business - and happy to provide a warm welcome to visitors from their alma mater.

Mark Harrison presented his paper "The Soviet Economy: the Late 1930s in Historical Perspective" (with R.W. Davies, Oleg Khlevniuk, and Stephen G. Wheatcroft) to the annual conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Cambridge on 14 April.

Matteo Gamalerio presented his paper "Not Welcome Anymore: the Effect of Electoral Incentives on the Reception of Refugees"at the 2018 ZEW Public Finance Conference in Mannheim. Further details here. He also delivered a seminar at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy on 26 April. The seminar was organised by the MEDAM research group.

Bingsong Wang has had his paper accepted by Oxford Economic Papers. The paper is titled "Endogenous Real Wage Rigidity in a Search Frictions Model' and co-authored with Chris Martin.

Peter Hammond attended a conference at the University of Alicante to honour Carmen Herrero on 9-10 April, and presented a talk on "Utilitarianism for a Benevolently Impartial Ethical Decision Maker".

Media Coverage

---

"A monetary remedy for the midlife crisis" - Andrew Oswald's work on the life cycle of human wellbeing mentioned by author, Tim Harford - Financial Times, 29 March 2018.

"Why Technical Experts Make Great Leaders?" - Andrew Oswald mentioned by Amanda Goodall: This is work done with Larry Kahn at Cornell University and Andrew Oswald at Warwick. -Harvard Business Review, 24 April 2018.

Department Diary

---