Professor Joe Pearlman presented a paper on his work on national monetary economic policy to the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Summer 2007 in Barcelona, Spain. The NBER is the US’s leading economic research organization and is dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how economies work. It is highly influential and 16 of the 31 American Nobel Prize winners in Economics and six of the past Chairmen of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers have been researchers at the NBER. Professor Pearlman was awarded £45,000 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council to undertake this work in collaboration with the University of Surrey and City University.
In June the Department hosted the 2007 Eva Colorni Memorial Lecture. It was given by Professor Foster, Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford. The lecture explored how nationalism is inculcated and examined its relationship to religion, globalisation, and language. The lecture was attended by Professor Amartya Sen Harvard Professor of Economics and Nobel Laureate, chaired by writer and journalist Paul Barker, and a number of distinguished guests attended including Professor Eric Hobsbawm, Lord Desai and Professor Ronald Dworkin. Both Desai and Dworkin have previously given the Memorial Lecture.
In summer 2007 Dr Amos Witztum was conferred an Honorary Professorship by the Academic Council of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The School is one of the largest and now, most significant, social science university in Russia.
Professor Nicholas Sarantis has recently published a paper in the Journal of Banking and Finance. The journal has a 4* rating which is the highest possible international ranking. In this paper he uses advanced quantitative techniques to examine the short-term predictability of exchange rates and shows how international investors can make significant profits following an inter-day trading strategy based on his technical forecasting model. The paper represents the pinnacle of research in the area and is expected to be a primary international reference point in the field of forecasting financial markets.
In July 2007 Dr Photis Lysandrou won the Best Paper Prize (Sponsored by Blackwell) at the 5th International Conference on Corporate Governance held at Birmingham Business School. The prize was presented by Lord Cadbury. The paper on 'The Anachronism of the Voice-Exit Paradigm - Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance in the UK', was written with Denitsa Stoyanova, and can be downloaded from the Department’s research web page.
Dr Guglielmo Volpe, who was awarded a £50,000 prestigious UK National Teaching Fellow in 2006, is currently working on a project evaluating the effectiveness of using case studies in teaching in the area of International Business Strategy on the MA International Business degree. The study is supported and funded by the UK Economics Network.
In early summer 2007 Dr John Sedgwick was awarded a prestigious Visiting Research Fellowship by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. As part of the award John will be developing our economic understanding of the nature and development of the Australian film industry and he will be giving a series of high-profile lectures and presentations to specialists in the field.
