UQ’s strengths in this discipline span Economic Theory (1401), Applied
Economics (1402) and Econometrics (1403): the School of Economics is the main
contributor and is home to an unusually innovative and eminent group of
economists; its distinguished history includes Colin G. Clark (first Distinguished
Fellow, Economic Society of Australia (ESA) and one of the first Australian-based
Econometric Society Fellows), and Nobel Memorial Prize recipient John C.
Harsanyi (a founder of Game Theory and Econometric Society Fellow). RePEc, a
collaborative effort of academics in 71 countries that collect scholarly data
including publications and citations, ranks Economics at UQ among the top
departments in Australia and the top 2.5% of registered institutions active in
economic research globally.
UQ also claims a disproportionate share of distinguished research fellowships and
other professional honours. UQ Economists include one of two Federation
Fellows in economics (Quiggin), three of five ARC APFs in economics
(McLennan, Pitchford – awarded 2009, Rao – awarded 2009), Australia’s only
ARC APD in economics (Takayama – awarded 2010), and the Deputy Director of
the ARC Centre of Excellence for Complex Systems (Foster). McLennan is one
of a handful of Australian Econometric Society Fellows and Quiggin is a Fellow
of the American Agricultural Economics Association. Five UQ Economists are
Fellows of Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (Foster, Grant, Quiggin, Rao,
Tisdell); Frijters received the 2009 ESA Young Economist Award and Menezes
won the 2004 ESA best paper award. Quiggin is one of the world’s most-cited
economists and winner of the Australian Citation Laureate Award (2004). Foster is
President of the International J.A. Schumpeter Society and McLennan is the Chair
of the Australasian Standing Committee of the Econometric Society. UQ
Economists also include present and past presidents of the Australian Agricultural
and Resource Economics Society (Quiggin, O’Donnell). Frijters (Health
Economics), Menezes (Auction Theory), Rao (Productivity Analysis), and Tourky
(Mathematical Economics) are all acknowledged world leaders in their fields.
UQ economists make regular significant contributions to policy formulation at
national and international levels, most recently in resource sustainability
(particularly water), taxation, infrastructure regulation, climate change and
innovation policy. For example, both Quiggin and Menezes have provided advice
to the recent Henry Review of Taxation and Foster, in 2008, was a member of the
Panel that reviewed the National Innovation System and was a co-author of the
influential Cutler Report. Members also serve on various policy bodies, including
the Academic Consultative Committee of the Secretary of the Commonwealth
Treasury (Foster), the Board of the Queensland Competition Authority (Quiggin),
the Queensland Treasury Economic Model Advisory Committee (Mangan), and
the Technical Advisory Group for the International Comparison Program at the
World Bank (Rao).
Further input into state and federal policy is provided using a range of modelling
techniques. For example, Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) modelling, an area in which
the School has significant international leadership (An Introduction to Efficiency and
Productivity Analysis by Coelli et.al, has achieved 2663 Google Scholar citations) has
been applied extensively. UQ also houses, along with U Texas, Gambit software tools
for Game Theory and related tools for computation of Nash equilibria of strategic
games.
World-class standing is further evidenced by extensive Editorial Board
involvement in A* journals (Games and Economic Behavior, Economic Theory,
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty) and A journals (Journal of Economic
Psychology, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Review of Income and Wealth,
and The Economic Record---as well as the Journal of Mathematical Economics
(inexplicably ranked C). During the survey period Foster was a member of the
ARC College of Experts.
UQ has strong international research links with many senior researchers in NYU,
Minnesota, Chicago, Harvard, UCLA, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris I, Rice, Wharton and
the National Bureau of Economic Research and others. This is reflected in the high
number of A and A* publications with co-authors from prestigious Universities.
Visitors to UQ and co-authors include among others Professors Bill Greene (NYU),
Bernard Cornet (Paris 1), Myrna Wooders (Vanderbilt), Mark Wright (UCLA) and
Simon Grant (Rice). UQ Economics’ strong visitors program has lead to a number of
research collaborations but also to other initiatives that have led to greater
opportunities for PhD and masters training such as becoming an Associate Partner of
Paris I under the Erasmus Mundus Program.
These international collaborations are also reflected in Honorary Professorships UQ
has awarded to highly distinguished academics, including Simon Grant (Rice), Robert
Chambers (Maryland), Stan Metcalfe (Manchester), Steve Bradley (Lancaster), Knox
Lovell (Georgia) and Vani Borooah (Ulster). These Honorary Professors visit
regularly and have published in A* ranked journal outlets with UQ staff. Reinforcing
this research culture is an active seminar program and junior staff mentoring program,
involving applied workshops and specific mentoring by senior academics.
The group of highly-talented economists at UQ have attracted extensive external
competitive funding, averaging over $1.1 million p.a. in ARC grants (Linkage,
Discovery) over about 3 successful ARC grants p.a. (2003-08). Approximately one
third of all staff has current ARC funding across a wide range of topics including the
study of migration and remittances, the modelling of insider trading in stock markets
and the development of new methods and techniques for the measurement of
productivity and efficiency. Such range illustrates the breadth of expertise that is
being developed at UQ and this is the hallmark of a top economics departments
The age profile of the economics professoriate is young by Australian university
standards, with a large number of professors in the School under the age of 50, and
supported by an on-going recruitment drive focusing on early and mid-career
researchers. Recent recruits include outstanding graduates from The University of
Chicago, Washington University, and Tilburg ; recent hires have published in A*
journals such as the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Public
Economics, Journal of Economic Theory, Rand Journal of Economics, and the
Economic Journal.
The UQ School of Economics aspires to be confirmed as Australia’s leading
Department and to be ranked among the leading departments in the world. It has a
deeply-embedded research culture. Staff publish in leading A* journals such as
The American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Applied Econometrics,
Journal of Econometrics, Economic Journal, Games and Economic Behavior,
Economic Theory, Journal of Health Economics and the American Journal of
Agricultural Economics, and also in leading A journals such as Applied
Economics, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Economics Letters, Economica,
Journal of Productivity Analysis, International Journal of Game Theory, Journal
of Regulatory Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
and the Journal of Mathematical Economics. There is balance and depth in the
school’s research profile: >70 % of journal outputs in 1401 and 71% in 1403 are in
A* or A-ranked journals, As might be expected, the figure for 1402 is somewhat
lower, at 43%, because of the large range of areas in which applied economic
research is conducted. These results also reflect the fact that a very high proportion
of staff are research active in the School.
There are two highly-active research-oriented agglomerations of scholars in the
School: The Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA) and the Risk
and Sustainable Management Group (RSMG). Both are influential nationally and
internationally and provide focal points for research and research training in their
areas. RSMG is home to ARC Federation Fellow John Quiggin and CEPA home
to ARC Professorial Fellow Prasada Rao. Staff associated with these centres
produced a large number of A and A* publications and attracted substantial
research funding, as our data show.
UQ economists collaborate strongly across the university: with Political Science
(Quiggin), Computer Science (McLennan, Tourky), Public Policy (Brown, Menezes,
Pitchford, Quiggin), Human Geography and Demography (Mangan), Complex
Systems (Foster).
In summary, The University of Queensland has a talented and highly research-active
group of economists. This group ranks amongst the top groups of economists in
Australia in the areas of Economic Theory, Econometrics, and Applied Economics. It
has some of the most accomplished scholars in Australia and a growing cohort of
exceptional junior academics. The economics group at UQ claims a disproportionate
share of honours, competitive research grants, prestigious fellowships, as well as high
quality publications. The School of Economics, which is the main core of the
economics group, is highly research intensive and is becoming widely recognized as
one of the premier departments of economics in the world.