Doctoral study in Economics

        Why study with us?
The University of Auckland consistently ranks in the top 100 globally and is New Zealand’s No. 1 university. (QS World University Rankings)

The Business School at The University of Auckland is part of the 1% of Business Schools worldwide with Triple Crown accreditation.(AACSB International, EFMD-EQUIS, and AMBA)

The university hosts more researchers in business and economics than any other New Zealand university. This expertise provides opportunities for original and significant contributions to knowledge in various disciplines.

Students have opportunities to connect with professionals from their discipline through networking event, fostering collaboration and industry connections.

The Business School offers state-of-the-art facilities, including dedicated workspaces for full-time PhD students.

Doctoral candidates receive annual Postgraduate Research Student Support (PReSS) funding to cover research expenses.

The Business School Careers Centre assists students with career planning through skills workshops, employer interactions and individual support.

Research opportunities

When you undertake your doctorate in Economics at the University of Auckland Business School, you’ll join a community of internationally recognised researchers. You’ll have opportunities to publish your research and present it at international conferences. You may also be actively involved in our research centres and groups, including the Centre for Applied Research in Economics (CARE), the Retirement Policy and Research Centre (RPRC), the Energy Centre and the NZ APEC Study Centre.

We welcome research proposals in topics relating to our key research specialisations:

Industrial organisation, regulation, energy, transport and environmental economics
Macroeconomics and finance
Microeconomics and experimental economics
Labour markets, education, health and public policy
International trade and development economics

Our people

There are a large number of high-calibre researchers working in the Economics discipline at the University, in both the Business School and the Faculty of Arts.

Dr Debasis Bandyopadhyay: The relationship between the distribution of human capital and economic growth, macroeconomic productivity, migration and social security

Professor Ananish Chaudhuri: Issues of gender and leadership, how different payment schemes affect productivity and learning in cognitively challenging tasks, cooperation in human social dilemmas

Dr Simona Fabrizi: Economic Theory & Design, Innovation Theory, Decision Theory, Information Economics, Industrial Economics, Network Industries, Competition Law and Policy, and Public & Institutional Economics.

Professor Prasanna Gai: The design of macro-prudential policy, sovereign risk, information acquisition in OTC markets, law and finance, network models and financial stability

Dr Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy: Time series and panel data econometrics, urban economics

Professor Tim Hazledine: Impacts of New Zealand’s economic liberalisation policy alternatives, trade and growth

Dr Steffen Lippert: Climate Cooperation; Taxation in Two-sided Markets; Privacy in Two-sided Markets; Ambiguity and Employment Contracts; Worker Composition, Absorptive Capacity and Innovation.

Professor Sholeh Maani: Economics of Labour Markets and Labour Market Policy, Economics of Education, Economics of Immigration, Income Distribution, Health and Housing

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Law and Economics, the Economics of Global Development, Navigating the Business Environment, Business Economics

Dr Stephen Poletti: Industrial organisation and regulation, energy and environmental economics

Dr Erwann Sbai: Auctions, econometric theory, empirical industrial organisation, micro-econometrics, structural econometrics

Professor Basil Sharp: Energy and resource economics, economics of the environment, law and economics

Dr Asha Sundaram: International Trade, Development Economics, Applied Econometrics

Dr Haiping Zhang: Macroeconomics, International Economics, Financial Market Imperfections, Development Economics

Find a supervisor

Past research topics

"Essays in Behavioral Labour Economics" | Supervised by Professor Ananish Chaudhuri
"Money, markets, and jobs: essays on financial stability" | Supervised by Professor Prasanna Gai
"Productivity and Relative Prices" | Supervised by Dr Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy and Dr Martin Berka
“Worker skills, competition, labour allocation and economic performance” | Supervised by Dr Simona Fabrizi and Dr Steffen Lippert