Departmental news

Congratulations Class of 2020!

As many of you are receiving your final year results today and with this summer's ceremonies postponed, we would like to celebrate your achievements in a virtual way.

We have created for you a Virtual Yearbook which records the thoughts and reflections of the 2020 cohort of graduating students from the Department of Economics, with special messages from staff who supported them and from our alumni community.

Please visit the Economics Virtual Year Book 2020 where you will be able to read the messages, watch the videos, and view photographs from several events from your time at Warwick. You can still add your own memories of your time with us via an online form until 31 July 2020.

We hope we will have a chance to celebrate your achievements in person when we can, as we work to reschedule ceremonies for 2021. In the meantime, we will be arranging to post your certificates to you.

Professor Jeremy Smith, Head of Department has sent this message:

"We in the Department want to congratulate you on your achievements, both academic and non-academic, over your time at Warwick and hope that your graduation is reward for all the hard work and devotion you have shown towards your studies.

We wish you all the best for the future as you move beyond Warwick and look forward to hearing about your future endeavours and successes. Please keep in touch."

Let's celebrate today

We would like to celebrate the publication of your final results and invite you today to join in celebrations via social media platforms:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• Twitter

As you begin to celebrate, be sure to tag us or use the hashtags: #WarwickGrad and #WarwickEcon2020

How to keep in touch

Please remember to register on the warwickgrad.net portal so that we can access your contact details to send our alumni newsletter.

• Join our Economics Alumni LinkedIn Group
• email us at economics.alumni@warwick.ac.uk

We are delighted to report that in the National Student Survey (NSS) 2020, 91.4 per cent of our students in the Department of Economics said that they were satisfied with the course as a whole which is 2.9 percentage points up on last year. This places Warwick as the top-ranked Economics department for student satisfaction among Russell Group.

This year’s survey closed on 30 April 2020 and the response rate from final year undergraduates in the Department was 85%.

The highest satisfaction scores were achieved in key areas of Teaching, Learning, Student Voice and Careers:

• 93.2 per cent of undergraduate agreed that: “staff are good at explaining things” and 94.1 per cent agreed that ‘the course is intellectually stimulating.”
• 92.2 per cent of students agreed that: “I have been able to access course-specific resources (e.g. equipment, facilities, software) when I needed to.”
• 91.1 per cent of undergraduates agreed that: “I have been able to contact staff when I needed to.”
• 91.1 per cent of students agreed that: “I have had the right opportunities to provide feedback on my course.”
• 91.2 per cent of students agreed that: “As a result of my course, I believe that I have improved my career prospects.”

Head of Department Professor Jeremy Smith has commented:

“l would like to thank our finalists for rating many aspects of their student experience so highly as this gives me and my colleagues a feeling of enormous satisfaction and pride in what we do. All feedback is important as it gives us ideas on how we can improve our teaching, learning and assessment even further.

I would like to pay a special tribute to all my colleagues in the Department: those with a front-facing role in the delivery of teaching and learning and those who work behind the scenes to make things run smoothly. The high student satisfaction scores are the result of the time, effort and devotion you show every day at work.”

Full NSS data is available on the Office for Students website.

Henry Tse and Avan Tam, two final year students studying BSc Economics were selected to represent the University of Warwick amongst a team of four at the BI International Case Competition (BIICC) in Oslo in February 2020.

Held by the BI Business school, in Oslo, Norway, the BI International Case Competition (BIICC) is an annual competition that is spread over six days with twelve international teams from renowned universities who compete in challenges which involve solving problems and delivering cutting edge solutions to real business case scenarios.

Henry and Avan documented each of the six days at the competition and reflected on how fortunate they were to participate in such an event.

Six Day Overview

Day 1 - The BI International Competition kick started with an opening dinner and party, where we were introduced to the Norwegian culture and business trends within the Nordic commercial world - which set the scene for the cases that we will be working on over the week. It was also a great opportunity to socialise with delegates from all the other eleven teams as well as the BI student buddy of our team, who accompanied us over the entire competition.

Day 2 - We presented our solution for the premier case on the second day. The case was released a week before we flew into Norway which allowed us plenty of time to prepare and rehearse the 10 minute presentation. In the premier round, we were asked to compose a strategy for the Construction City Cluster, a government backed joint venture in sustainable construction, to promote sustainable construction in Norway.

Despite the team’s solid performance, it was unfortunate that we scored second within the group of six and did not make it into the final. We believed that this was a product of our immense hard work and preparation beforehand. Nonetheless, this experience of presenting to the CEO and the senior management of the company was without doubt eye-opening and has also prepared the team’s confidence for the upcoming 24-hour case.

Day 3 - On day 3, we had the chance to tour around Oslo, taking a brief escape from business casing before the 24-hour final round. In the morning, we had the opportunity to visit the Norges Bank - the central bank of Norway, and learned about how the institute manages the country’s national reserve. We then toured around the city of Oslo, visiting local food halls and museums before gathering with all the other teams for dinner and exchanging ideas for the upcoming final round.

Day 4-5 - We were given our final case and 24 hours to solve it before presenting to a panel of judges the next day. This proved to be the most challenging part as the case involved a deep understanding of the electronic recycling services in Norway which pushed us to present innovative solutions on ways to collaborate with the recycling company in a scalable and certifiable way. Given the short amount of time, we have utilised the resources the best we could and complemented each other's strengths when working on the case.

Day 6 -During the presentation day, we put a huge amount of emphasis on the long-term strategy and recommendations on differentiating the recycling company from its rivals. Although our ideas successfully caught the attention of the judges, we did not manage to get qualified for the final round. The feedback given was that they would have preferred if a more comprehensive financials of the business were explained thoroughly. We also went above and beyond in seeking feedback from the CEOs to find out how we could improve in the future. Although we did not win the competition, we reflected on the advice received and took it as a good learning experience. We also realised that merely suggesting creative ideas was not enough, but instead more focus should be put on a strong plan of implementation backed by sound financial knowledge and business acumen in the future competitions.

After the competition, we were invited to a gala dinner, followed by a tour around the city with a “party” bus. We had a great time taking part in this competition.

Final Reflection

Looking back, BICC was an eye-opening experience for us. Firstly, we have made new friends from many universities across the globe and it was such a humbling yet fantastic experience for us to hear different perspectives on issues raised during the competition. Secondly, we have learnt so much in such a short period of time and being able to present our business skills confidently in front of the CEOs was something we are very proud of. Looking back, we think that the whole experience has given us even more confidence to do well in our future careers.

We are proud to announce that Karmini Sharma, a PhD student in the Department of Economics, has been selected as one of the qualified Young Economists for the 7th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences.

As one of the 373 Young Economists from 60 countries she can look forward to participating in two prestigious events: the 7th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences in August 2021 and the interdisciplinary Online Science Days 2020.

The Lindau Meetings on Economic Sciences, founded in 1951, bring together young economists and Laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel and have developed into a unique international scientific forum with some 35,000 PhD students and post-docs having taken part over the years.

The Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences is held every three years and the next event will take place on Lake Constance in 2021 (postponed from 2020 due to Covid-19). The Online Science Days 2020 which are due to take place this summer will enable the Young Economists, including Karmini, to exchange their knowledge and ideas in online lectures and discussions.

Karmini’s research focuses on development and experimental economics and the economics of gender. She is grateful to her supervisors who have nominated her for the 7th Lindau Meeting - Professor James Fenske and Dr Clément Imbert and she has commented: “It was a pleasant surprise to be nominated, amidst the lockdown. I would like to thank my supervisors: Clement Imbert and James Fenske for their constant solid support as without them, it would have not been possible!"

Professor James Fenske has praised Karmini’s research work: "Karmini has an exciting research portfolio of randomized interventions and laboratory experiments tied together by themes of gender and development. Her job market paper experimentally evaluates interventions aimed at tackling sexual harassment in Delhi colleges. Her other work informs our understanding of how women seek feedback, how their work is judged by others, and how their perceptions of their work and schooling environments shape the decisions they make, based on lab experiments carried out in Delhi and Warwick. What Karmini has accomplished during her PhD has been nothing short of remarkable."

Her working paper, with James Fenske and Alessandro Castagnetti, published as CAGE Working Paper 452-2020 is available here: Attribution Bias by Gender: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Further information about the Lindau Meetings

• lindau-nobel.org
• lindau-nobel.org/blog
• mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org

A Warwick Economics student - Christian Orr, was part of a team that represented the University of Warwick at the John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition (JMUCC).

Each year, John Molson School of Business at Concordia University host its annual multi-round case competition in Montreal, Canada, where student teams from twenty eight renowned business schools compete in solving real world business problems.

The JMUCC is the largest undergraduate event of its kind and brings together some of the the brightest and passionate students from around the world to participate in a week-long competition challenging their decision-making, strategic thinking and problem solving skills.

Christian, who is in the final year of the BSc Mathematics and Economics, was amongst four students chosen to represent the University of Warwick at JMUCC in February 2020. He documented each of his seven days at the competition and reflected on how fortunate he was to participate in such an event.

Seven Day Overview

Day 1 - The first day at JMUCC was marked by an opening ceremony and welcome drinks. It was a great opportunity for us to get to know our student guide from JMUCC and to meet the other students from the 28 other universities that were competing.

Day 2 - 4 - The following day was the first of 3 days of preliminary 3-hour cases. Each day we were required to solve a business case before presenting to a panel of expert judges including executives working at the client company. The first round involved a health insurance provider that was looking to launch a new product to increase revenue. The second was a health charity that wanted to tackle low philanthropy in Quebec and a lack of talent in their workforce. The final case was an AI product launch, deciding which industries would be most beneficial to enter.

The lack of an internet connection made these cases particularly challenging but made me realise a key strength of our team. Each member studied a different subject (PPE, Accounting and Finance, Business Management, and Maths and Economics) and had a different array of experiences to draw from. Having different ideas shared from Warwick Discourse Society, Warwick Incubator, TEDxWarwick, and Warwick Consulting Services created a vast range of ideas and viewpoints that we could include in our presentation.

The 20-minute presentations were tough; having only had 3 hours to familiarise ourselves with a company before presenting to judges who had years of experience working at the client company. This also made for an interesting Q&A where we had to quickly think on our feet and make sure that our recommendation was robust enough to stand up to scrutiny.

As the only team travelling without a coach, our team really benefitted from the quick feedback loop provided by the judge's feedback after presenting. We made detailed notes and were able to quickly adopt these improvements into the following cases.

Day 5 - We were then given a rest day where we were free to explore Montreal. Our student guide was great at showing us the best local food and introducing us to Canada’s favourite sport; ice hockey. We first tried ice skating where our experience of shuffling slowly around the outer edges of the rink really made us appreciate the skill of the Canadian Montreals, when watching them play later that evening at the Bell Centre.

Day 6 & 7 - The final case was a 24-hour case from Walmart and required a new technological innovation to improve the customer experience and a plan to expand in the healthcare sector. This was a great opportunity to showcase our learnings from the previous rounds. We had a few surprises thrown our way, receiving changes to the project tasks and being told at short notice of meetings with a panel from Walmart to ask questions. This was done to simulate a real-life business scenario in which you need to quickly react to unforeseen changes. Despite this, we were able to provide a solution with a detailed implementation plan and were able to fully justify the benefits. Unfortunately, our team did not make it into the finals.

Final Reflection

It was an experience that I and my teammates thoroughly enjoyed. It was a unique opportunity to meet like-minded students from all over the world and present and gain feedback on our ideas from a diverse range of industry experts. I would highly recommend this experience to any other student curious about business and strategy.

We are delighted to announce that a record number of 18 Economics undergraduate students have been accepted to present their papers at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR 20) which will be hosted this year at the University of Leeds, 6-7 April 2020.

The BCUR is the largest annual event for undergraduates in the UK, offering an excellent opportunity for students to present their research at an academic conference which is supportive and interdisciplinary.

Since 2010, when BCUR was established, the presence of Economics students at the Conference has grown over the years, culminating this year in a record number of students accepted onto the conference programme. The department wishes to congratulate all Warwick Economics participants and is happy to provide financial support to enable attendance at the conference.

Professor Gianna Boero, Module Leader for Research in Applied Economics (RAE), who advises our students on paper submission and participation at national and international conferences, has said:

“We are delighted that so many of our students have had their papers accepted for presentation at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research 2020. This connects very well with our teaching pedagogy based on the concept of the Undergraduate as Researcher. The BCUR offers an excellent opportunity for students to develop their research communication and dissemination skills, as well as a chance to network with other student researchers and academics from different universities, which often creates great contacts for future research.”

BCUR 2018 and 2019

Here are two case studies from Economics students who took part in BCUR:

2019 - BCUR University of South Wales, Cardiff, UK – read Mara Balasa's report here

2018 - BCUR University of Sheffield, UK - read Paul Noller's report here

Further information

• Student Research in the Department of Economics
• The British Conference of Undergraduate Research is at the University of Leeds, 6 – 7 April 2020 – BCUR20
• About BCUR
• About Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL)

We are pleased to report that on 18-19 January 2020, the Department of Economics hosted the first event of this kind in the UK - Women in Economics Student Workshop which brought the students’ perspective into the debate on female under-representation in the discipline.

The event was coordinated by Dr Stefania Paredes-Fuentes, an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, and a group of undergraduate students.

UPDATE: New Guide released ”Economics for All” with 7 Action Points to start the change and promote diversity in Economics. This guide was written with the contribution of students participating to the workshop and it is directed to Department of Economics and Universities to help them to become more inclusive

The organisers are grateful to three sponsors of the event: The Royal Economic Society (for the Special Project Grant), Warwick Innovation Fund and the Department of Economics.

Students from all over the UK were encouraged to submit their proposals and initiatives focusing on the topics of changing the curriculum and the perception of the subject, the place of student-led organisations and the importance of role models. During the two days, students from 12 universities gathered to present their ideas and to discuss the issues around the lack of diversity in the discipline.

On the first day of the workshop, students presented their ideas in four sessions which highlighted the importance of broadening the scope of the curriculum, changing the narrow perception of the discipline to attract more girls to pursue a career in economics, developing ‘Women in Economics’ networks and pursuing the idea of setting up an inter-university network.

The organisers were pleased to welcome to the workshop some eminent economists who talked about several initiatives to increase diversity in economics. Professor Wendy Carlin (UCL) outlined some new ways of teaching economics curriculum (promoted by the CORE Project) which focused on using the economics tools to try to solve the big questions that affect the world e.g. automation, inequality or climate change. Ms Urvashi Parashar, Senior Economist at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills talked about the importance of bringing a new perspective to inform government policies and the initiatives to increase diversity in the public sector. The day ended with the social dinner where participants networked in an informal setting.

On the second day of the workshop, Dr Luisa Affuso (a former student of the Department of Economics, Chief Economist at Ofcom), Dr Tom Schuller, Professor Manuel Bagues and Dr Stefania Paredes-Fuentes had a panel discussion in which they gave their views on what were the main challenges for more inclusivity in Economics, and what can we do to address these challenges. It emerged that we needed to raise awareness among students, academics, and employers in the private and public sector of the importance of diversity in economics, as this would benefit all and not just women.

Somjeeta Chatterjee from London School of Economics (LSE) had this to say about the event:

“This event was really one of the pioneering events out there, in terms of encouraging women to join the field of Economics. I watched so many brilliant women with terrific ideas – all of which can truly make a difference in the number of women in our discipline if they are implemented! We, as future female Economists, were encouraged by the Warwick conference to carry this conversation forward. Hence, we organised a follow- up conference at the LSE, and a group of us are trying to put our ideas into action. Hopefully, we can collaborate with the University of Warwick on this issue further. Together, we can to ‘debunk, disrupt and diversify’ Economics!”

Another participant, Oluwaspamilerin Solola from Loughborough University, said:

“'It was an enlightening experience and I learnt a lot about what is already being done to promote economics to women. But what surprised me and encouraged me even more was the genuine passion that the other ladies had for economics and the schemes and ideas they were presenting.

The beauty of the event was that some of the ideas overlapped which presented an opportunity for a collaborative approach to tackling the lack of women in economics. I definitively left feeling encouraged and inspired to take on the world of economics.”

Full details of the event including speakers can be found here.

A Warwick Economics alumna has won the Investment Week "Investment Woman of the Year (Small/Medium Firms)" Award in recognition of her work as a Policy Lead.

Caroline Escott (pictured in the centre), a BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies graduate, was awarded the Investment Week award for leading on investment and the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policy at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and for coordinating the Association’s work on Diversity & Inclusion.

Investment Week, who are working in partnership with HSBC Global Asset Management to improve diversity within the Investment sector launched the Women in Investment Awards 2019, and since then, have received over 1,000 nomination and believe the ceremony will only get bigger and better.

We caught up with Caroline to ask her about her award and about her career.

What is the award for?

It is for “Investment Woman of the Year” for smaller to medium firms. It was partly in recognition of the work I do in my day job, leading on investment and ESG policy at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association – the trade association for the pensions and institutional investment sector. The award also acknowledged my role as co-ordinator of the PLSA’s work on diversity and inclusion to ensure that as “the voice of the pensions industry” we are at the forefront of efforts to build a more diverse pensions and investment sector, which can better respond to diverse savers’ needs.

What does the award mean to you?

The pensions sector lags behind many others in its approach to diversity and inclusion – 83% of pension trustee boards are male and 3% of trustees are under 40 – so it is wonderful to be recognised for our efforts at the PLSA. Hopefully it will serve as inspiration to the team going forwards: we have big plans for 2020, including a practical trustee diversity guide to support schemes in their recruitment efforts, a number of roundtables and events to bring key actors from across the investment chain together and redoubling our efforts to raise awareness in the sector of why diversity matters.

Why is it important to improve diversity within the investment sector?

There’s a whole host of evidence which shows that more cognitively diverse boards avoid behavioural biases such as groupthink and make better decisions. Individuals trust their savings and investment to the asset management industry and it’s vital that investment firms and pension trustee boards make every effort to ensure they make the right decisions which protect and enhance the value of people’s savings.

Have things started changing already or is it still a long way to go?

There are a number of organisations and individuals doing excellent work in the pensions and investment industry including The Diversity Project, NextGenNow, the Young Pension Trustees Network and many others. This momentum and genuine commitment is welcome but too many organisations still see diversity as a ‘nice to have’ or merely pay lip-service to the concept. Hopefully, the PLSA’s work to encourage pension scheme clients to ask their investment service providers and the companies they invest in exactly what they are doing to become more diverse and inclusive workplaces will draw good diversity practices up through the investment chain.

What would you say to our students considering a career in investment?

Mostly, that I hope that my answers don’t end up putting off anyone who thinks they don’t neatly conform to the asset manager stereotype or “look” from pursuing a career in the sector! A role in investment or investment policy can be extremely rewarding. You get the opportunity to work in a dynamic environment where no two days are the same and are taking decisions that can have a fundamental impact on the retirement incomes that people receive. My Economics and International Political Economy degrees at Warwick and the LSE were fundamental in equipping me to be unafraid to challenge others’ assumptions and approaches, which I think has stood me in good stead in my career: I’d strongly encourage Warwick Economics graduates from all and every background to consider a career in investment and investment policy.

About Caroline Escott

Caroline works for Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) as Policy Lead: Investment & Stewardship which involves working on a number of institutional investment and corporate governance issues. She is responsible for co-ordinating the Association's work on Diversity & Inclusion.

After graduating from Warwick with a degree in Economics, Politics and International Studies in 2006 she headed to LSE to do a MSc in International Political Economy. While there, she did a Parliamentary internship before getting her first job at a political consultancy. Then she got a full-time job in Parliament working on financial policy research for a couple of MPs.

Her next career step was to become Head of Public Policy at a sustainable finance trade association before moving on to pensions policy at the Association of Professional Financial Advisers and now at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, where she also co-ordinates the PLSA's diversity work.

Caroline says about involvement in various projects: 'I've always had a fairly active extra-curricular life, from volunteering in an Oxfam bookshop or local political activism to leading an anti-human trafficking organisation of 140 volunteers. This year I will become a trustee of one of the UK's largest pension schemes - which should keep me pretty busy in my spare time!'

The photo above is from the Award Ceremony and has been submitted by Caroline Escott.

A Christmas message from our Head of Department...

We are at the end of the first term for this academic term. With the festive season upon us, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a wonderful festive break and a Happy New Year and to reiterate the need to find the time to relax over the festive break, spending time with family and friends, and come back in 2020 refreshed!

A number of festive events are happening on campus, for details of activities please visit the University's Christmas on Campus.

Department Closure Dates

The department will be closed over the festive holiday from 12pm noon on Tuesday 24^th December 2019 to January 5^th 2020.

Best Wishes,

Jeremy Smith
Head of Department - Economics

We are delighted to see that research from Professor Daniel Sgroi, Professor Andrew Oswald and Emeritus Professor Nicholas Crafts was featured in The Times newspaper, with two articles making the front pages.

Britons were happier when Victoria was on the throne

Tuesday, 15 October 2019

Findings from CAGE researchers Daniel Sgroi, Eugenio Proto and Thomas Hills with Chanuki Illushka Seresinhe from Turing Institute on the front page of The Times today.

After analysing 8 million books and 65 million newspaper articles, researchers have created the first-ever ‘index of national happiness’ going back to 1820. Read more...

The paper ‘Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using Millions of Digitized Books’ was published on 14 October 2019, in Nature: Human Behaviour.

It is co-authored by Prof. Thomas Hills, Prof. Eugenio Proto, Prof. Daniel Sgroi, and Dr Chanuki Seresinhe.

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0750-z

Air pollution takes decade off memory, study suggests

Wednesday, 16 October 2019

New research by Andrew Oswald (Department of Economics) and Nattavudh Powdthavee (Warwick Business School) shows that human memory is significantly worse in parts of England with high levels of nitrogen dioxide and air particulates. The difference in memory quality between England’s cleanest and most-polluted areas is equivalent to the loss of memory from 10 extra years of ageing

The research article “Is there a link between air pollution and impaired memory? Evidence on 34,000 English citizens” is in press with Ecological Economics. It is available on the websites of the researchers, Nattavudh Powdthavee and Andrew Oswald.

We’re still in a productivity slump, but technology could lead us out.

Wednesday, 16 October 2019

As the chances of avoiding no deal Brexit improve, there could be a route out of the UK’s productivity slump: David Smith cites CAGE research by Nick Crafts and Terence Mills.

Read the research “The mother of all slowness” by Nicholas Crafts