Departmental news

We are delighted that Josef Chen, a former student of the Department of Economics has been listed in the 10th edition of Forbes Europe 30 under 30 List for 2025. The list, published by Forbes annually, recognises exceptional achievements of 30 individuals under 30 years old, in 19 different categories.

Josef, who graduated with a BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies in 2023, has been listed in the Manufacturing & Industry category alongside his business partners, Piers Millar and Ivan Tregear, for creating Kaikaku, a robotics and AI startup that raised $4 million to scale the next generation of restaurants where repetitive tasks are automated so that humans can focus on the hospitality part.

The Forbes profile gives praise to Josef and his co-founders of Kaikaku for pioneering food-safe 3D-printed plastic components and manufacturing all of their hardware and software in-house at a central London lab behind its robotics-powered restaurant.

We asked Josef to tell us more about his career to date and his innovative business venture and here is what he said:

What was your career ambition after graduating from Warwick in July 2023?

"After graduating from Warwick, I was offered a place on the MSc programme at Imperial College London. But by then, I had already experienced investment banking, private equity, and venture capital through internships, and realised I wasn’t built to just analyse other people’s companies. I wanted to build, not watch. I felt a deep urgency to create something that could reshape the world. So, I decided to channel my creative energy into setting up Kaikaku rather than doing the MSc course.

In under a year, we launched the UK’s first robotics-powered restaurant with a fully operational site in London, open to the public, where our engineers work behind a one-way mirror. We call this our “living laboratory” because it allows us to iterate daily and gather feedback from paying customers in real time. That speed and obsessive execution earned me a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30, but the real credit goes to the entire team for their tenacity and true grit.

What is Kaikaku?

"Kaikaku is building the next generation operation system for restaurant chains, powered by robotics and AI but defined by customer experience. Our mission is to create the best restaurant experiences by building the world’s most vertically integrated restaurant hardware, software and AI.

Our first product is Fusion, a robot that can assemble more than 360 customised bowls per hour on autopilot, increasing throughput compared to a traditional operation by more than 300%. The goal isn’t to remove humans, but to automate repetitive processes so they can spend all their time delivering unique hospitality to our customers.

How did you come up with this idea?

"My parents opened a Chinese restaurant in a small Austrian town after immigrating from China. Growing up in that household meant 14-hour shifts stacking used dishes and translating stacks of German documents into Chinese starting when I was just 6 years old. That kind of trauma stays with you. Especially a hatred towards your parents for making you work while all your friends are spending their childhoods playing video games.

So, as a teenager, I swore I would never follow my parents and set foot in the restaurant industry again. But then, my mom said something that turned all my hatred into a lifelong challenge: “Making you work in the restaurant was the only time me and your dad as restaurant owners got to spend time with you.” Few weeks later, Kaikaku was born.

What does ‘Kaikaku’ mean?

“Kaikaku” means radical change in Japanese. While most of the food industry embraces Kaizen, the philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement popularised by Toyota, we take a different path. We’re fundamentally rethinking the entire system.

What’s your key business goal and how are you going about it?

"I want to be synonymous with restaurants just like Bernard Arnault is synonymous with luxury goods. While still very early, we’ve already proven our ability as an extremely lean but top-tier team, to consistently ship technology 10 times faster and cheaper than most of our competitors. We are excited to announce a string of significant partnerships very soon!

What’s your vision for the restaurant of the future?

"I imagine it to be an extremely personal and human experience with technology handling everything that’s transactional. By removing the repetitive grind, our team can focus on what truly matters: the customer. Robotics doesn’t replace the human touch but enables it.

What Warwick skills and experiences shaped you?

"For me it’s time management. Warwick’s community gave me the motivation and energy to achieve more. For example, during COVID, I launched a nonprofit alongside 15 other Warwick students where we digitised 250+ restaurant menus across the Midlands to allow for digital ordering.

What was the most valuable part of your BSc in Economics, Politics & International Studies?

"The most important aspect of my degree was learning to think in an interdisciplinary way. Economics and Politics may seem like separate fields, but in the real world, they’re deeply interconnected. For example, economics taught me how to dissect market behaviours and incentives, while politics helped me understand the power structures and institutions that influence those behaviours.

This combination has been key in shaping how I approach real-world challenges like incentive structures behind restaurant operations and how technology can reshape that. It’s helped me design solutions that are not just innovative, but practical, by considering the entire ecosystem, from people to processes to technology."

We thank Josef for this interview and congratulate him on his success.

We are pleased to hear from Molly Paxton (BSc Economics student), Internal Communications Officer of Warwick Women in Economics society that they are hosting their annual International Women’s Day Conference on Sunday, 9 March, 11am-4pm in the Faculty of Arts building (FAB0.03).

Molly commented on the importance of the event for promoting equality and diversity in economics, and mentioned the key highlights of the programme:

" We believe it is crucial to celebrate International Women’s Day, and our conference brings together a diverse range of speakers and attendees to highlight the importance of female representation and leadership.

We are delighted to welcome Maxine Laceby, the founder of Absolute Collagen, to discuss her entrepreneurship journey, the process of founding her company and the skills she needed to succeed in a competitive industry.

“This keynote is followed by a Financial Journalism panel with Claudia Meulemeester (Financial Times), Bianca Francesca (9fin) and Zahraa Manji (ITV). The panel will cover the process of researching and writing articles, the importance of rigorous journalism in an age of misinformation and AI, as well as discussing the impact of Trump’s presidency on the global economic landscape.

“Our second keynote speaker is Anisha Rasan, an economic advisor at HM Treasury, specialising in the labour market and short-term forecasting. With her extensive experience in policy analysis and project development both in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as in her current role at HM Treasury, we are excited to hear her invaluable insights about working in the public sector.

“Our conference concludes with our Women in Economics panel, hosting representatives from the Warwick Economics department as well our sponsors. We are joined by Dr Chara Tzanetaki, a Principal in Competition Practice at Charles River Associate; Ana Grujic, an analyst at Frontier Economics; Professor Caroline Elliot, a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Warwick and Dr Zeynep Kurter, a Teaching Fellow, also in the Department of Economics at Warwick. The panel will discuss the experience of women working in the field of economics, the importance of female role-models and how our panellists found their speciality within the field.”

The IWD conference is free of charge, ensuring accessibility and diversity within Warwick Women in Economics society, and welcome students and staff from all departments (not just Economics) to attend and participate in the important discussions they are hosting.

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International Women’s Day Conference 2025 – programme summary

• Entrepreneurship Keynote Speaker: Maxine Laceby, Founder of Absolute Collagen

• Financial Journalism Panel: Claudia Meulemeester (Financial Times), Bianca Francesca (9fin), Zahraa Manji (ITV)

• Public Sector Keynote Speaker: Anisha Rasan, HM Treasury

• Women in Economics Panel: Dr Chara Tzanetaki (CRA), Ana Grujic (Frontier Economics), Dr Zeynep Kurter (Warwick Economics), and Professor Caroline Elliott (Warwick Economics)

How to register

To register, please visit the WWiE International Women's Day 2025 registration page

We are very proud to announce that five Warwick Economics finalists from 2023 and 2024 are recipients of the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024 in the category of Business and Economics. Five students were highly commended, and one became the overall winner of the Business and Economics category.

The Global Winner in the Business and Economics category is a former BSc Economics with Study Abroad student, Beverley Cheah who has been recognised for her work "Clustering of Green Jobs and Wage Growth in the US: A Spatial Analysis Approach", with dissertation supervision received from Dr Eman Abdulla. Following her graduation Beverley works now as AI Strategy Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Here is what Beverley said about her achievement:

"I am honoured to represent Warwick as the Global Winner in the Business and Economics category for the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024. The experience of applying theoretical models to solve real-world problems has been immensely rewarding, and the problem-solving, research and coding skills I have developed while working on the dissertation have been invaluable to my personal and career development. I would like to thank Dr Eman Abdulla for her guidance and support, without whom this dissertation would not have been made possible."

The Global Undergraduate Awards is an international academic awards programme that recognises originality, innovation, and excellence at the undergraduate level. Entrants can submit their work in one of 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines. There were over 2000 submissions from 343 institutions in 2023.

The best 10% of work is shortlisted as Highly Commended, and the top submission in each category is deemed the Global Winner.

In addition to having the Global Winner, four of our Warwick Economics finalists were Highly Commended, making it 5 out of 12 students in the category of Business & Economics being from the Department of Economics at Warwick, a record success rate for Warwick Economics. We approached the highly commended graduates for comment:

We congratulate all award recipients and wish they further successes.

We also congratulate Dr Eman Abdulla, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Warwick who supervised undergraduate dissertations (as part of the final year module Research in Applied Economics) of three of the students mentioned above, including the global winner. She also revealed to us that in her 5 years at Warwick, this is the second time that a student she supervised won the Global Award, and the third time in which her students were highly commended.

All five recipients of the awards have been invited to attend this year’s Global Undergraduate Summit which will be held on 10-13 November in Dublin, Ireland.

Related links

Undergraduate Global Awards 2024 - Global Winners

Undergraduate Global Awards 2024 - Highly Commended

Economics Graduates' Success in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2021

Warwick economists lead the world in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2022

Submissions to The Global Undergraduate Awards 2025

If you are a student who will graduate in 2025, The Global Undergraduate Awards Programme will be accepting submissions soon. For more information and eligibility criteria, please visit: The Global Undergraduate Awards website.

Warwick Economics PhD student, Adam Di Liza, has received the Best Paper prize of the Business and Industry Section of the Royal Statistical Society awarded at the PhD Symposium 2024 in Industrial Economics.

Adam's paper, Social Influence in Online Reviews: Evidence from the Steam Store, discusses his research on how the reviews left by users might influence the reviews others leave. Using a policy change on the Steam gaming platform the paper shows that when users are exposed to the reviews of others, they are more likely to leave a negative review if they see a negative review. However, this does not happen when users see a positive review. This negativity bias increases the gap between lower rated and higher rated games. Other key findings of this research point out that less experienced users are influenced by the reviews of others much more, and policies that correct this negative bias increase the sales of products on the platform.

Adam, who is a first year PhD student of Economics at Warwick, was awarded the Best Paper prize of the Business and Industrial Section of the Royal Statistical Society for the best contribution to the use and advancement of statistical-econometric methods and/or data collection to the analysis of industrial economic issues.

Adam's prize was announced at the PhD Symposium in Industrial Economics, as part of a two-day research conference of the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) on Innovation and Competition in Digital Platforms held at the University of Warwick on 27-28 June 2024. The symposium brings together early career economists (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) to foster discussion and dissemination of research in all areas of industrial economics and to provide them with feedback on their work from a designated discussant drawn from both internal and external faculty.

Commented on the award, Adam said:

“It's great that so many people found my research interesting. Understanding the specifics of online review generation is hopefully useful for platforms, but also us as consumers. Not only did I get really good feedback, but I got to discuss this in detail with my fellow presenters throughout the day. Both my supervisors, Professor Mirko Draca and Dr Ao Wang, have been of immense help as I wrote this up over the last few months and I definitely couldn't have done this without them.”

We congratulate Adam on this achievement and wish him further successes in the future.

Related information

Adam Di Liza is a first year PhD student in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick. Further information about his research and publications can be found on his PhD student Profile – Adam Di Liza.

The Network of Industrial Economists

Established in 1970, the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) is a forum for interchange among university economists in the UK, and for interaction between academia, business, and government on topics of industry economics.

NIE Conference and PhD Symposium 2024, 27-28 June 2024, University of Warwick

Royal Statistical Society

Founded in 1834, the Royal Statistical Society is one of the world’s leading organisations advocating for the importance of statistics and data. It’s a professional body for all statisticians and data analysts with more than 10,000 members in the UK and across the world.

We congratulate a Warwick Economics finalist, Alex Reid (BSc Economics), who is one of the winners of the University's Outstanding Student Contribution Awards 2024 for demonstrating his entrepreneurial flair during his time at Warwick. The OSCAs recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions of Warwick's students who not only excel academically, but also find the time to campaign for good causes, fundraise, start small business, and work with local charities.

In his second year, Alex got in touch to tell us about how he and two of his friends created a social media app called Butterfly, available to Warwick students, so that they could receive relevant content about campus life and feel connected to fellow students. We outlined the benefits of the app in the article Butterfly helps students spread their social wings, which was published in March 2023.

When we interviewed Alex then, he commented on his venture:

"We all felt that social media has lost its way - far from being social, these days it is about passive scrolling and the consumption of entertainment, often far removed from our own day to day lives."

Now, Alex has just finished his final year exams and is getting ready for his graduation on 23 July at which he will be receiving his Outstanding Student Contribution Award 2024.

We asked Alex how he felt about being awarded an OSCA and he said:

"Warwick is an amazing place to learn, connect, and innovate - I'm very grateful to have had these opportunities and be awarded the OSCA."

The app Butterfly is available in the AppStore and Google Play Store.

August Küenburg (BSc Economics, Year 2) has released an exciting new podcast Econ Bites, exploring economic public policymaking and its key figures and institutions. In his impressive first episode, August interviews Jonathan Haskel, member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, to discuss central bank independence and inflation targeting. We caught up with August about his fascinating new project.

Hi August! Why did you decide to start creating and publishing your own podcast?

Having my own podcast gives me the opportunity to talk to inspiring people in the field of economics about all kinds of interesting topics and share these conversations with other interested people. Preparing a podcast episode is a fun learning experience and an excellent way to deepen my own understanding about certain topics that we begin to cover as undergraduate economics students.

Your first episode has a very exciting guest – Jonathan Haskel. Can you explain who he is and why you’ve chosen to interview him?

Jonathan Haskel is a Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and is currently serving his second term as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank of England. Jonathan holds one of the nine votes to decide the future of the UK monetary policy. His experience as a central banker and ability to explain complex matters with often simple analogies makes him the perfect guest for my podcast episode.

Why should people listen to this episode with Jonathan?

Listeners will hopefully gain a better understanding of how the MPC operates and why inflation targeting and central bank independence are essential to ensure effective and credible monetary policy. Jonathan makes an excellent point about how economists have too long held a machine-like view of the economy and that a major intellectual breakthrough was needed to start treating the economy much more systematically.

For this episode you’ve done a lot of research into the history of the Bank of England and its policymaking on matters such as inflation. How has your degree in economics equipped you with the skills to complete this research?

One of my optional models, Money and Banking, discusses monetary policy and central bank independence in more detail and this motivated me to do further research into central banks. Most of my preparation goes into reading the literature and gaining a solid understanding of the topic.

Your podcast demonstrates a keen interest in policymaking – are you planning to pursue a career path in this area?

At the moment I want to pursue a career in public policy, being as a central banker or maybe as an economist at the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

Talking to people in those fields is an exciting opportunity for me to learn more about their jobs and why they matter so much. Policymaking has a real impact on people’s lives, and I believe that coming up with new insights and solutions to various economic issues could be a very interesting and fulfilling career prospect.

I hope to have more central bankers, academics and economists working on public policy on my podcast in the future.

August Küenburg (BSc Economics, year 2)

You can listen to August’s first episode of his podcast Econ Bites on Spotify here.

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

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.

Warwick Economics PhD student, Jinlin Wei, has received the Best Paper Prize of the Business and Industrial Section of the Royal Statistical Society awarded at the PhD Symposium in Industrial Economics.

Jinlin’s paper, Branching for Caution: Banks in England and Wales during the 1878 Financial Panic discussed his research on how exposure to an unexpected financial panic resulting from the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878 led to the geographic expansion of banks affected, based on a bank-level dataset on joint-stock banks in England and Wales in the 1870s and 1880s.

Jinlin (third year PhD student of Economics) was awarded the Best Paper Prize of the Business and Industrial Section of the Royal Statistical Society for the best contribution to the use or advancement of statistical-econometric methods or data collection to the analysis of industrial economic issues.

Jinlin was presented with the prize at the PhD Symposium in Industrial Economics he attended last week, as part of a two-day research conference of the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) held at the University of Leicester School of Business. The symposium brings together early career economists (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) to foster discussion and dissemination of research in all areas of industrial economics and to provide them with feedback on their work from a designated discussant drawn from both internal and external faculty.

Commenting on the award, Jinlin said:

"Witnessing the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, I hope that this paper can add to our understanding of how accountability affects the responses of banks to financial panics and how regions with low financial access are affected."

We congratulate Jinlin on this fantastic achievement and wish him more successes in the future.

Related information

Jinlin Wei is a third year PhD student in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick. For further information about his research and publications can be found on his PhD student Profile - Jinlin WeiLink opens in a new window.

The Network of Industrial Economists

Established in 1970s, the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) is a forum for interchange among university economists in the UK, and for interaction between academia, business, and government on topics of industry economics.

NIE Conference and PhD Symposium 2023Link opens in a new window, 8-9 June 2023, University of Leicester School of Business

Royal Statistical Society

Founded in 1834, the Royal Statistical SocietyLink opens in a new window is one of the world’s leading organisations advocating for the importance of statistics and data. It’s a professional body for all statisticians and data analysts with more than 10,000 members in the UK and across the world.

Image banner attribution

Wikimedia Commons license: A cleared cheque from 1877, the year before the collapse of the City of Glasgow Bank,Link opens in a new window 4 June 2014, author AllyD

Four undergraduate students from the Department of Economics presented research papers at the prestigious Carroll Round conference in April 2023.

The Carroll Round is an annual international economics conference at Georgetown University for the world’s top undergraduates to present their research and exchange ideas. They are joined by prominent members of the academic and policy-making communities in a forum that facilitates informed and productive discussion on global economic issues.

The students had the opportunity to showcase original research undertaken as part of the final year of their degree course at Warwick. They presented their findings in discussion panels moderated by economics professors and practitioners.

This year’s keynote lectures were given by Dr Lisa Cook, member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, and Dr Signe-Mary McKernan, vice president of the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services and Population.

Class of 2023 (pictured L-R)

• Mateusz Wiewiórski, ‘Effects of recent and prior migrants on native’s wages.’
• Jay Kavaiya, ‘Is net-zero a feasible approach? A theoretical model of sustainable growth & natural capital.’
• Daira Povez Gamboa, ‘The effect of child penalty in Peru’s labour market.’
• Andy Lau, ‘A model of online misinformation with endogenous reputation.’

Find out more about the Carroll Round conferenceLink opens in a new window