Economics and Finance research and PhD programmes

Our research is broadly focused in our five research groups: Economic Development and Institutions, Empirical Finance, Accountancy and Corporate Governance, Macroeconomics and Banking. Academic staff involved within these programmes investigate unemployment, debt and financial instability, focus on how a country’s economic performance is affected by its institutions, use state-of-the-art econometrics to analyse issues with crucial business or policy implications, and address economic issues related to European integrations.

Research opportunities for students 

Research students are welcomed to Brunel as valued members of our thriving, research-intensive community. Browse PhD opportunities below and find out about the funding available for students.

Research in Economics and Finance 

Find people, projects, groups and publications in Economics and Finance and read more about related research to this area.

Meet our experts

Take part in our research seminars, talks and workshops

See the programme of events

Economics and Finance Research Papers

Browse our collection of research outputs

International Conference

The Shadow Economy, Tax Behaviour and Institutions

Independent assessment of our research quality (REF 2021)

View REF 2021 details for Economics and Econometrics (UoA 16)

Caribbean pensions on a better financial footing

REF 2021

Accountancy and Corporate Governance

Accounting and Finance research with special interest in financial statement relevance, asymmetric information, and corporate governance.

Banking

Our group provides world-leading research on banking and financial regulation issues which is highly impactful in influencing policy makers.

Economic Development and Institutions

Research activities in this area cover economic development, institutional economics, political economy, labour economics, behavioural economics, economics of conflict, economic and political aspects of European integration.

Empirical Finance

We use state-of-the-art econometrics to analyse issues with crucial business or policy implications, providing assistance to policy makers and market participants

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability

Our focus is on how individuals, businesses and societies can tap into creative and entrepreneurial flair to develop innovative solutions, in order to not only create economic value, but also solve social and environmental problems.

Institute of Communities and Society

The Institute focuses on the social, community, and cultural aspects of pressing contemporary issues including migration and movement, social unrest, intersectional inequalities, and institutionalised poverty.

Law, Economics and Finance

The Centre for Law, Economics and Finance aims to advance the wider societal impact of our research by engaging with policymakers, practitioners and other stakeholder.

Macroeconomics

The focus of the centre is to conduct first-rate research into macroeconomics aspects of a range of issues such as unemployment, debt and financial instability.

Ethnic Diversity, Brexit and Social Integration

Caribbean pensions on a better financial footing

Leveraging millets enterprises for women's economic empowerment

How do politician funding, characteristics and behaviour relate?

The politics of hydrogen in the UK

Does migration contribute to health inequality?

Cryptocurrency markets

Assessing GDP and sub-component revisions

Promoting transparency against tax evasion and market manipulation

Net negative carbon energy for economic development

Developing a mandatory sustainability reporting model for Indian companies

Centralised digital tax system to reduce tax fraud in EU

Environmental tax reform towards Net Zero Carbon

Textual properties of merger and acquisition press releases

Global agricultural supply chains and trade mechanisms

Cross-border portfolio flows and media news coverage

Bitcoin exchanges and cultural analysis

Emotion AI for trading on financial markets

Trade flows and the pandemic: evidence from Europe

Pause

Courses

Economics and Finance PhD

Health Economics PhD

View all courses

Fully-funded studentships

Our funded studentships become available at different times of the year. Please keep checking our page regularly to see the latest funded opportunities. We also advertise all our funded studentships as soon as they become available on the @BrunelResearch twitter account.

View all studentships