Agri-Environmental Economics

Description

The Kent School of Economics offers both taught and research postgraduate degrees, covering all aspects of the subject.

We are dedicated to excellence in both teaching and research, demonstrated by results in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 and recent student surveys. All academic staff are active in research, and teaching and learning are informed by the School’s thriving research culture and strong cosmopolitan academic community.

Our taught courses offer excellent training in core economics; the opportunity to specialise in areas such as finance, econometrics, development, agriculture and the environment; and advanced skills necessary for employment as an economist at a senior level.

Economics staff at Kent have an international reputation in their field and the School regularly features highly in annual surveys of departments of economics in the UK. Our staff members serve as academic advisers and experts to UK and international agencies, including the World Bank, the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK Treasury, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and the UK Food Standards Agency.

We have 28 academic staff, with about 30-40 MSc students and 38 PhD students.
This creates a good community for interaction between students and ensures students receive a good deal of individual attention in classes and workshops.

Contents

The PhD programmes are open to students who have successfully completed a taught Master’s programme in economics. We aim to provide you with an environment in which you can both develop as an economist and complete a high quality thesis and provide you with the appropriate resources to achieve this. You can expect committed supervision, to be able to make regular appointments with your supervisor(s) to discuss your work, to receive timely and constructive feedback on all the work that you do, and to receive advice on how to present your work externally. In the most recent national Postgraduate Research Experience Survey, the School of Economics scored highly, with 100% of respondents expressing satisfaction with the quality of the supervision and that their overall experience either met or exceeded their expectations. This underlines our commitment to creating an excellent environment for our research students.

Depending on the programme and your level of achievement, you may have to take advanced training in the first year of study. Further research training in subsequent years includes advanced reading groups, research workshops and (if needed) attending specific courses related to your research.

Labour and education economics

Staff research includes work in the areas of wage distributions, skills and job quality, education, migration and trade.

Macroeconomics, money and finance

Staff research in this area includes: macroeconometric theory; monetary policy; financial markets and macroeconomic performance growth theory and international macroeconomics; theoretical models of business cycles, labour market search and financial sources of economic fluctuations; DSGE models; growth theory and empirics.

Microeconomic theory, games and behaviour

Research interests cover public economics especially tax policy; gambling and uncertainty; international trade and government procurement; health economics; public goods; leadership in co-ordination games; industrial organisation; theoretic modelling; economic history.

Development economics

Research interests include work on growth; trade; the balance of payments; different aspects of migration and remittances on growth; applied studies focusing on particular developing countries.

Agri-environmental economics

Research interests cover non-market valuation, food safety, information economics applied to environmental problems, design and evaluation of agri-environmental policies, biodiversity, agricultural productivity, European agricultural policy, agricultural trade policy.

Transport and regional economics

Research strengths are the regional impact of transport investments; the economic evaluation of infrastructure; regulation and alternative funding models; the economics of public-private partnerships.

Requirements

A Master’s degree in Economics or another relevant discipline at merit level or above, or equivalent.

English Language Requirements

IMPORTANT NOTE: Since April 2014 the ETS tests (including TOEFL and TOEIC) are no longer accepted for Tier 4 visa applications to the United Kingdom. The university might still accept these tests to admit you to the university, but if you require a Tier 4 visa to enter the UK and begin your degree programme, these tests will not be sufficient to obtain your Visa.

The IELTS test is most widely accepted by universities and is also accepted for Tier 4 visas to the UK- learn more.