We were delighted to attend an event at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire last week for the official opening of their new clinical research facility.

We are proud to report that four of the best Warwick Economics student dissertations have been published in the sixth round of the Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers (WM-ESP) series.

The WM-ESP portal showcases the top innovative and original research papers written by Warwick and Monash undergraduate and postgraduate students. Over 74 papers have been published since its launch in 2021, covering the most significant topics for young economists in todays climate, including the housing market, climate change, gender inequality and healthcare.

We congratulate our four students for this fantastic achievement and for the fascinating research that they have conducted; we wish them all the best for their future endeavours.

You can find out more about their research papers below:

Relevant Links

Top Economics student research showcased on Warwick Monash portal in it's fifth release 9 October 2023

Fourth Suite of student research papers showcased on Warwick Monash portal 9 March 2023

Over the past 25 years, sustainable finance has grown from a visionary concept discussed at UN climate conferences to a multi-billion dollar market. It’s an umbrella term used to refer to an investment approach that takes environmental, social and governance factors into account when deciding where to invest.

One of the biggest names in sustainable finance today is Warwick alumna Caroline Escott. Regularly cited in lists and surveys of the industry’s most influential figures, she’s taken a range of interesting and exciting roles since graduating in the class of 2006, and is now Senior Investment Manager for one of the UK's largest pension schemes, Railpen.

We caught up with Caroline to hear about her career choices, the skills she believes are essential to make a success in the financial markets, and why she believes sustainable investment is one of the most effective ways to achieve both good outcomes for pension savers and positive change in the world.

Caroline, you have been named as one of the Top 50 Most Influential in Sustainable Finance by FinancialNews - can you explain what sustainable finance is?

Sustainable investors are responsible for allocating capital to companies where they are either doing well on environmental, social and governance issues or where they can be influenced to do better. Sustainable finance can also help drive flows of capital to those companies and sectors that are most important for the ongoing sustainability and viability of the world around us, such as new carbon emission abatement technologies or low-carbon infrastructure projects. As investors, we can – and do – try to influence individual companies, but it can be especially powerful to help shape the regulatory environment that governs how these companies behave. This is particularly the case when it comes to big, system-wide issues like climate change, biodiversity or labour rights.

Over the last few years, you have come to specialise in sustainable finance, especially within the area of pension schemes. What has brought you to this focus? What impact would you like to have within this?

If you are interested in influence and effecting positive change, then you need to be at an organisation where the decisions which are made matter to people’s lives. Pension schemes are perfect for this in two main ways. Firstly, they have a privileged role as large capital allocators, sitting at the top of the investment chain. Secondly, people rely on their pension schemes for their retirement income. In the UK, there are huge numbers of people at risk of an inadequate income in retirement, making this one of the biggest challenges we face as a country – and a vital field to work in.

I hope that the contributions I make to this work – including setting up and leading large global initiatives like the Investor Coalition for Equal Votes (ICEV) and the Workforce Directors Coalition (WDC) – will help bring about much-needed change in the best interest of pension scheme members.

You have made a few different career changes, from Parliamentary political research to finance and investment, all within the general theme of public policy. What made you want to make these changes, and what gave you the confidence to do so?

Moving between different sectors has happened in large part because of my work to build industry networks. I enjoy meeting new people and learning new things. This has helped me build a high-quality and wide network of experts and I’ve been fortunate to have been recommended to interview for well over half of my roles by people who I’d worked with on projects in the past – even where I was, on paper, the ‘wildcard’ candidate. I’ve now moved sectors enough that I recognise for myself the huge importance of transferable skills and the right attitude in being able to adapt to, and then thrive in, a new role.

Public policy and advocacy have always been at least part of the roles I’ve taken up. While at Warwick, my studies quickly helped me understand the huge influence that flows of capital as well as the regulatory and policy framework can have on the world around us – and that the real potential for effecting change lies where these two intersect. Even now, heading up the investment stewardship programme at Railpen, I’m a keen advocate of investors learning about how to effect policy and regulatory change.

What skills did you learn during your degree at Warwick that you still use in your role at Railpen now?

Studying economics changed how I see the world and taught me to take time to consider and understand the assumptions underlying anything from a substantive piece of research to the way in which a question in a meeting has been structured. Being able to understand and then potentially question the assumptions used is fundamental to the critical thinking that has become even more important as I take on more senior and leadership positions in my career.

What is your best memory of the University of Warwick and the Department of Economics?

It’s hard to choose just one! When I think of Warwick, I think of all the times I spent sitting and chatting with my friends – or people watching, reading a book, or getting ready to go to Top Banana.

I also remember the keen thrill of anticipation at the sheer number of modules I could choose to take as part of my degree. I ended up plumping for Italian language and translation, and a few economic history modules during my time.

You were involved in a few different societies during your time at Warwick, including Latin and Ballroom Society, and Warwick Economics Society. How did your time with these societies impact you, and what skills did they develop?

First – and perhaps most importantly – I met great people, some of whom are still close friends today. However, I also found the leadership roles I took on in these societies vital to helping me get my first job without much ‘proper’ work experience. I had both learnt and was able to demonstrate an ability to think more strategically, to organise my time effectively and to motivate a diverse group of individuals to achieve a particular outcome.

Caroline Escott (BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies, 2006)

You can find Caroline's op-ed on sustainable finance in The Times here.

Aylesford Sixth Form Science students welcomed to complete practical exams and gain hands-on experience in our labs following classroom closures. More at tinyurl.com/mr4d4hpr

On Tuesday 28^th November Professor Jonathan Haskel CBE, external member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), delivered a speech at Warwick University in an event jointly hosted by the Warwick Finance Societies and the Warwick Economics Society.

Oliver Greenfield, Head of Markets at the Warwick Finance Societies, reports:

"Jonathan Haskel is one of the 9 committee members who sets the UK bank rate whilst also currently being a Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School. Professor Haskel's research interests of productivity, innovation, intangible investment and growth led him to be a distinguished member on the editorial boards of Economica, Journal of Industrial Economics and Economic Policy.

"In his speech, UK inflation since the pandemic: How did we get here and where are we going? Professor Haskel explored the drivers of the UK inflation experience since 2020 by applying the Bernanke and Blanchard (2023) model. Using this model, he explained how the exogenous shocks which hit the UK economy fed through to result in the elevated inflation figures experienced, dispelling the commonly cited narrative that the Bank of England was wrong to characterise inflation as transitory. After reflecting on his experience on the MPC, Jonathan gave some thoughts on the future of monetary policy and concluded that without a sufficient loosening of labour market conditions inflation would stay elevated and hence interest rates would remain restrictive.

"After the event, Professor Haskel generously stayed behind to answer all of the many questions that students, academics, professors and external attendees wanted to ask. The event provided an invaluable insight for all those who attended and served as a great reminder of the application possible with the economic theory taught at Warwick University."

• The text of Professor Haskel's speech and his slide deck can be found here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2023/november/jonathan-haskel-speech-at-warwick-university.

Dr Becky Notman, along with Co-investigators across the Chemistry Teaching and Learning, Student Experience and Postgraduate Student community, have been awarded £28k from Enhancing Research Culture Funds.

We are Chemistry' student-led initiative showcased for Warwick's TEF Gold celebrationsLink opens in a new window and covered by Times Higher Education.Link opens in a new window

This year’s National Student Survey (NSS) results show a continuing high level of satisfaction among Economics final year undergraduates across almost all themes in the survey.

Almost 90 per cent of Economics finalists say they would recommend Warwick to future students, 7 per cent more than the average across the university.

Other areas where finalists indicated strong satisfaction with their course include:-

• Course content: 92% of participants agreed that they had found their Economics course intellectually stimulating; while 90% agreed that the course had often challenged them to achieve their best work.
• Study resources: 91% of respondents agreed that they had been well supported with IT resources and facilities.
• Feedback and academic support: 91% of respondents agreed that they received assessment feedback on time; while 90% of finalists agreed that it was easy to contact teaching staff when they needed to.

The cohort of students taking part in this year’s NSS had arrived at Warwick under the exceptional circumstances of the COVID 19 pandemic. The Department was pleased to note that 88 per cent of the survey participants felt that information about Warwick’s mental wellbeing support services had been well-communicated.

The annual UK-wide survey gathers final year undergraduate students' opinions on the quality of their courses. The Department carefully analyses the feedback received from the NSS. Every year the quantitative scores and the comments made help shape the future of Economics in the Department and the University of Warwick.

Changes to the survey questions and the response scales make direct year-on-year comparisons not possible in 2023. The data, however, allows the Department to compare​ Economics to other courses at Warwick, and to benchmark its performance against other universities.

Detailed comparisons with other UK Economics departments will be made later this year; however, initial analysis comparing Warwick’s results to other Departments within the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, are very positive, with Warwick Economics ranking in the top 5 across two thirds of the questions.

Head of Department Ben Lockwood commented:

“As a department we strive to deliver an outstanding student experience. The feedback we receive through the NSS is one of the tools which helps us to understand and meet student needs.

“We are of course delighted to receive strong satisfaction levels in so many areas and we will look closely at the areas where, as a Department, we have done less well to see what changes may be required.

“I would like to thank all of this year’s finalists. They have certainly had a very different university experience to the norm and it is a huge credit to them that they engaged with new ways of teaching, learning and research with great resilience. The Department is absolutely delighted that 90 per cent of our finalists would recommend Warwick.

“I would also like to thank all of our staff who rose to the challenge of delivering Covid-safe teaching and learning, and those who work behind the scenes to keep everything running. These high satisfaction scores are a real tribute to your skills and commitment.”

15 August 2023

Graduands from around the World and their families gathered on Saturday 1 April at University of Warwick to enjoy a truly wonderful event celebrating the first cohort of students graduating from Warwick-iheed partnership programmes.

The ceremony was presided over by the University of Warwick Vice Chancellor Stuart Croft alongside several iheed colleagues including CEO and Founder Tom O’Callaghan. The event celebrated the hard work, dedication and achievement of the students, but also created an opportunity to celebrate the success of the partnership itself - To read the full news item click here

Artificial intelligence is rarely out of the headlines. This week Microsoft founder Bill Gates declared the development of AI “as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone.”

You may not be using ChatGPT to help with exam answers, or creating art with Midjourney – but you are very likely to be already interacting with aspects of AI in your everyday life – maybe through the algorithms that select which show to recommend you view next on your streaming media; or which of your friends’ posts you will see on social media; or through applying to a firm which uses AI to assist in hiring decisions. Or perhaps you have had a medical diagnosis backed by AI-assisted computer screening.

Like Bill Gates, many researchers think we are on the horizon of an AI revolution. As well as benefits, there are challenges – are there unethical uses of AI? A machine intelligence could predict whether a person is likely to commit a crime before they do so, tempting authorities to imprison them in advance. Among others, the systems can unintentionally learn to replicate unhelpful stereotypes and bias.

One of the researchers working on ways to ensure the next stage of AI development is helpful, not harmful, is Warwick Economics alumna Charlotte Siegmann (PPE 2021).

Taking recent concerns over inappropriate responses by ChatGPT to users as a starting point, Charlotte explains the challenges:

“ChatGPT was not unexpected - similar base models have existed for a few years now.

“‘Sydney’ was likely a poorly fine-tuned model that never posed a real danger to anyone. However, something very important can be gleaned from observing Sydney and other models: over the next 1, 3, or 10 years, models will become increasingly capable but remain likely unsafe.

“This is because we still do not fully understand current models, and we have not solved the bigger problem of how to ensure that AIs do not do things we do not want them to do. This problem is challenging for several reasons:

• The complexity and difficulty of interpretability.
• AIs can learn incorrect goals unnoticed by humans during the training process - this is called Goal Misgeneralization.
• Humans can’t fully specify what they find desirable - this is known as Reward Misspecification,

“There are many open questions in AI safety and AI governance that researchers and policymakers need to address. What is happening within big models? How can we guide them to elicit latent knowledge that they don’t necessarily reveal through simply prompting? How can we avoid deceptive models?

“Similarly, in AI governance, we need to understand how this technology will develop, how to evaluate its safety, how to incentivize labs to invest in safety and how to mitigate disrupting effects on the epistemic environment, job market or national security.”

Charlotte is about to take up a PhD position at MIT focusing on the safety of transformative AI systems, as well as governance, working together with scholars in both fields. But she has already contributed to the public debate, as co-author (with Markus Anderljung) of The Brussels Effect and Artificial Intelligence: How EU regulation will impact the global AI market.

The report takes a deep dive into the EU’s ambition to set the global standard on AI regulation, following its success in setting the global benchmark for data protection with the GDPR, and explores whether such a “Brussels Effect” is likely.

Charlotte and Markus argue that the EU’s proposed regulations are especially significant in offering the first and most influential operationalisation of what it means to develop and deploy trustworthy or human-centred AI.

“If the EU’s plans are likely to see significant global diffusion, ensuring the regulations are well-designed becomes a matter of global importance,” Charlotte explains.

Reflecting on her time as an undergraduate and how her interest in AI research was sparked, Charlotte says:

“I started thinking about transformative AI in my first year of University and enjoyed discussing the issues with fellow Warwick students. I also attended a summer school on the topic. The economics perspective came later - I first became interested in microtheory in the Game theory course with Costas Cavounidis in my second year.

“During the first wave of the Covid pandemic, I interned with the Future of Life Institute. Together with a policy expert at the institute, I worked on a consultation response to the EU AI Whitepaper, a roadmap laying out the EU’s response to AI technology. Back then, the work on transformative AI or even human-level AI was more speculative - ChatGPT or GPT-4 did not yet exist.

“Since graduating I have been working as an economics predoc at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford. The Institute combines a philosophy and economic research group and we focus on research that can inform prioritisation efforts of actors wanting to do the most good.

“I did research on the longtermism paradigm, ways of influencing the far future from existential risk reduction to population growth. As a predoc, I organised research workshops, collaborated with others on research projects and shared my research with colleagues both within and outside the institute, among others in Canada and Japan.

“It’s very exciting to work at a young research institute at which we support each other’s work and a lot of collaboration is happening.”

We wish Charlotte every success as she begins her PhD research later this year.