Research Disciplines

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The Economists at RMIT predominantly reside in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing (EF&M) although other Economists reside in the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and there are strong links between these two groups.

Within the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University there are around 25 members of staff working in the discipline of Economics. The core strengths of discipline staff are in the field of Applied Economics. Within this research area staff interests can be classified into three broad groups: Development Economics, Macroeconomics, and Applied Microeconomics. The discipline also supports a number of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students.

The Development Economics research group collectively research across a wide range of interests and expertise including international trade, economic growth, foreign aid effectiveness, the impact of remittances, microfinance and financial literacy.

The interests of the Macroeconomics research group includes public sector economics, monetary policy and inflation, economic crises, history of economic thought, institutional economics, tax policy, political economy and Chinese economics.

The Applied Microeconomics research group has a very wide range of interests including: health and well-being, environmental and energy economics, economics of risk and uncertainty, program evaluation, behavioural economics, cultural economics and sports economics.

Furthermore, the economics discipline has a key strength in statistical modelling and econometrics. Specific areas of expertise include panel data econometrics, time-series econometrics and forecasting.

Services to the profession, industry and government offer invaluable channels for knowledge exchange, through which applied economics research can be disseminated directly to users. RMIT Economists place great emphasis on these roles given the applied focus of their research.

For further information about this research group contact the Discipline Leader Professor Lisa Farrell

Email: lisa.farrell@rmit.edu.au

Finance research resides essentially in the School of Economics, Finance. The historical focus in the discip0line group is on producing work-ready graduates though finance research outputs have grown over the 1990s and this research output has continued to the present. The school has maintained research with an applied focus, particularly in the areas of funds management, governance, international finance and asset pricing and ranks well amongst the finance schools in Australia in terms of research output. This has been fostered with the development of the Melbourne Centre for Finance Studies.

Members in the finance group have focused on building close links with researchers in other universities with a view to fostering joint research and opportunities to apply for ARC grants for example. The finance group has been successful in ARC Discovery grants over the period with two ARC Discovery grants in 2007.

The finance discipline has focused on industry relevant research, particularly through its links with the Melbourne Centre for Financial Research. This body provides small grants to foster research in finance in particular areas that are of interest to industry. Basic/fundamental research areas include mutual fund performance, governance, international finance and asset pricing. There is some additional research into the areas such as behavioural finance and commodity pricing.

For further information about this research group contact the Discipline Leader Professor Richard Heaney.

Email: terry.hallahan@rmit.edu.au

The Marketing Group has an impressive research profile. Highlights include empirical work in the areas of consumer culture, ethics, tourism, CRM, sports sponsorship, grocery shopping behaviour, obesity, branding, and word of mouth marketing. The Marketing Group takes great pride in producing research that is of value to industry and continually engages with industry partners to remain commercially relevant. Insights from our research feature regularly in leading trade publications and staff are asked on a regular basis to comment on their research in the media. We have published our research in many of the leading journals in the discipline. The Group had also attracted several ARC Linkage and Discovery Grants in areas as diverse as brand management, fan behaviour and sponsorship, brand authenticity, and obesity. Staff collaborate with other researchers from Australian and international universities including Monash University, UNSW, The University of Bath, Aarhus University, and The Harvard Business School. The Marketing Group also has a thriving HDR program producing high quality graduates.

For further information about this research group contact the Discipline Leader Professor Francis Farrelly

Email: francis.farrelly@rmit.edu.au.

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