DIT PhD Project
Supervisor name & contact details:
Co-Supervisor: Dr. LucÍa Morales
Email lucia.morales@dit.ie
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Joseph Coughlan
Email: joseph.coughlan@dit.ie
Supervisors Profile:
Research Centre:
Business, Society and Sustainability Research
Centre.
The Centre is committed to critical and creative
analysis and reflection on the impacts of
business on the wider society and the impact
of the wider society on business. Central to
these impacts is the theme of sustainability
understood not only in its ecological sense but
also in the sense of the ability of business to
maintain ethical and political legitimacy
through creating value in the long-term.
Research Centre website:
http://www.dit.ie/researchandenterprise/
ditrdcentres/businesssocietyandsustainabil
ity/members/
Supervisors Publication List:
http://arrow.dit.ie/do/search/?q=author_lnam
e%3A%22Morales%22%20AND%20author_fna
me%3A%22Lucia%22&sort=date_desc&fq=anc
estor_key:490738
http://arrow.dit.ie/do/search/?q=author_lnam
e%3A%22Coughlan%22%20AND%20author_fn
ame%3A%22Joseph%22&start=0&context=490
738&sort=date_desc
Title of the Project: “The Economic Challenges of Reliance and Usage of Fossil Fuels: A Case
Study Looking at the BRICS Economies”
Project Summary: The increasing volatility of fossil fuels on the world economy has important
implications for all world economies, but in particular the BRICS economies, who utilise
significant amounts of these energy sources to fuel their development. While there is a
substantial body of literature considering financial markets and their implications for economic
growth and development, surprisingly little empirical research has been carried out examining
the implications of energy market fluctuations from a macroeconomic perspective.
Since the global financial crisis financial markets and energy markets have been under
considerable pressure which has translated into increasing levels of instability. This has directly
affected the economic growth and development of the world economies. Consequently, this
project will focus on the economic implications of fluctuating fossil fuel prices and how they can
damage emerging economies that are rich in energy resources like the case of Brazil and Russia,
and other economies that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels such as India, China and South
Africa. This study therefore focuses on an examination of economic sustainability and the
environmental implications of current policies in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa) economies with regard their economic dealings with fossil fuels.
In order to understand the complexity of energy markets and their economic role this study
investigates energy price behaviour as well as economic integration and development. The main
contribution of this research resides in its focus on a block of countries that seem to be quite
resilient to current economic and financial instability affecting the world most developed
economies
This research proposes to analyse the integration levels among the BRICS economies with major
developed economies and their sensitivity to shocks originated in energy markets. As the BRIC
economies cannot be considered as a block of countries research looking at the especial
relationship with energy markets its fundamental in order to understand if these economies will
be able to benefit from sustainable economic development.
Ciência sem Fronteiras / Science Without Borders Priority Area:
Oil, Gas and Coal