Staff profiles

• Applied Economics and Policy

Rob's research interests cover the economics and political economy of EU policies and dynamics of policy reform (especially the Common Agricultural Policy [CAP], EU budget and EU enlargement issues), international trade policies (especially enforcement of trade policy rules in the WTO), and international biofuels policies.

He has a particular interest in research-informed teaching. As well as incorporating his own and others’ latest research into his teaching, Rob has developed new and innovative forms of assessment that introduce students to research activities linked to his teaching on the Economics of the EU.

In June 2010, Rob was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in European Economic Studies by the European Commission. This and the associated funding will help him develop his EU-related teaching activities at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

• In 2001 Rob was the only academic from a new University awarded funding from the UK Government Challenge Fund. For this Rob undertook a project for DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) looking at the budgetary impact of extending the CAP to the to the applicant countries.
• In 2007 Rob was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship. This award, of over £13,000, enabled Rob to spend a term working with Dr Adrian Kay as a Visiting Fellow in Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane. This project analysed both the dynamics behind the 2005 reform of the EU sugar regime under the CAP and also, with sugar as one case study, changes in the place of agriculture in WTO trade rules and how dispute settlement rules and their enforcement have changed over time.
• In 2008 Rob was a member of a team, led by Dr Wyn Morgan and including Dr Tim Lloyd, Professor Tony Rayner and Evious Zvogu of the University of Nottingham, that received support from the Nuffield Foundation to analyse the impact of EU sugar policy reform on sugar market and price volatility.
• In 2009 Rob, with Dr Kay (now an Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Economics and Government, the Australian National University) was awarded over £78,000 by the ESRC to investigate the dynamics and interactions of food and biofuels policies in the EU, USA and Brazil.

• The ESRC-funded project exploring the dynamics of food and biofuels policies, involves the writing of several journal articles and a book.
• Two ongoing projects involve analysis of world sugar markets. One is investigating the volatility of world prices; the other is exploring sugar trade using a gravity model framework.
• Work is ongoing which investigates the extent to which EU member states’ corporate governance codes have converged. This project also asks important questions about the aims of the EUs Open Method of Coordination.
• Two current projects involve working to produce papers for special editions of leading policy journals. One explores alternative frameworks that researchers can utilise when analysing EU policy processes. The other, part of the biofuels project, is contributing towards an edited volume on policy analysis and the new politics of food and agriculture.
• Rob is also working on analyses of various aspects of wider economic integration. One paper looks at inflation volatility and its implications for central and eastern European countries’ ambitions to join EMU. The other explores the suitability of a monetary union in West Africa, using an Optimum Currency Area framework.

• In July 2003 Rob was invited to present a paper to the QMW Public Policy Seminar series examining the impact of the 2003 reform of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) on the world trade talks.
• In April 2005 Rob was invited to present the paper The Implementation of Rural Development Policy in the New Member States: Lessons for Romania? to a conference Challenges of the EU Rural Development Policy in an Enlarging Europe, organised by the European Institute of Romania and hosted at the Marriott Grand Hotel, Bucharest.
• In 2004, 2006 and 2011 he was invited to submit written evidence to the House of Lords' investigations into aspects of the EU budget. In the latter case he was subsequently invited to give oral evidence.
• In 2009, Rob delivered an invited paper on the future of the EU Budget to a seminar organised by the Federal Trust.
• Rob is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Common Market Studies, an Associate Editor for Economic Issues, and a member of the Steering Group for EuroChoices.

Rob's supervisory experience covers a wide range of applied economics topics. As Director of Studies he has supervised to successful completion theses analysing the impact of inward flows of Foreign Direct Investment on Turkey's trade performance and another modelling monetary policy in Ghana. He is currently directing a thesis analysing the corporate governance role of failed merger bids.

As Second Supervisor he has supervised to successful completion a thesis analysing pensions reform options in Romania. Rob is currently Second Supervisor to theses investigating the development of stock markets in transition economies and an inter-disciplinary study of sovereignty and statehood in an evolving post-national world.

Rob is happy to be a member of a supervisory team for theses covering a wide range of applied economics and inter-disciplinary themes. Topics for which he is willing to be Director of Studies are principally in the broad areas of European integration, policy studies and international trade.