Human Resource Economics Research Group

Core Members

The Human Resource Economics group includes Steve Bradley, Geraint Johnes, Jim Taylor, Ian Walker, Colin Green, Jill Johnes, and Rob Simmons. Ian Walker joined the group recently from Warwick, and he has particular interests in family structure (with papers published in the Economic Journal and Journal of Human Resources), the economics of education (American Economic Review, Economic Journal) and the union markup (Journal of Econometrics). Along with Rob Simmons and members of the Macroeconomics, International Economics and Financial Markets group, he also has interests in the economics of gambling (Econometric Journal, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics). The economics of education underpins much other work in this group, with research being conducted by Geraint Johnes, Jill Johnes and Steve Bradley on cost structures, efficiency evaluation and funding mechanisms in the secondary and tertiary sectors (leading to papers in the Economic Journal, European Journal of Operational Research). Steve Bradley has also conducted research into empirical job search models and the school-to-work transition (Economica), and, along with Colin Green and Jim Taylor, is currently working on the evaluation of specialists schools. Work by members of this group has been funded by the ESRC, DfES, Nuffield and EU.

For further details of individual research and publications in these area, see staff profiles.

Potential PhD topics

The group would particularly welcome applications from well-qualified candidates interested in pursuing PhD study in any of the following areas:

Economics of education

A comparative analysis of the determinants of educational attainment
Cost structures in higher education
Funding models for higher education
Educational attainment and labour market outcomes
Efficiency measurement in a non-profit sector, eg higher education
Evaluation of school efficiency and effectiveness
Teacher supply and teacher retention

Labour market economics

Labour economics (personnel economics)
Labour market discrimination
Empirical analyses of worker absence, effort and the impact of human resource management policies
Promotions and training in the UK labour market

Sports economics

Efficiency of sports betting markets
Experimental tests of theories of gambling
Applications of non-expected utility theory to issues in gambling and other asset markets, such as impacts of higher moments of distributions on expected returns or the design of lottery tickets
Market size, attendance and team performance in European football
Pay and performance of head coaches in the Bundesliga
Racial discrimination in the National Football League

Economics