The duration of this programme is 4 years and in the first year, all students are admitted to the MPhil programme and are registered as MPhil students. During the first year, each student is assigned a supervisor and a small group of other staff in a related field (Thesis Advisory Board). The student is also expected to attend a Research Methods Course and a number of other specialist postgraduate courses totalling 25 credits. Students also complete an advanced research proposal during the first two semesters.

The student is entitled and encouraged to transfer to the PhD programme in year 2 if he/she obtains a pass grade in all courses and at least an honours grade in the presentation of an advanced research proposal, normally between 5000 and 7000 words in length. During years 2,3 and 4, the student continues to write his/her thesis; he/she is also expected to undertake annual assessments of their progress, that include a presentation of their work to fellow students and staff during the PhD (normally three presentations over three years) and an internal review board.

There are many employers of Economics PhD graduates. In addition to academic teaching and research positions, graduates are employed in Government agencies, "think-tanks", financial services companies, and in business. As a numerate discipline, employer’s value the analytical expertise of PhD graduates. One of the advantages of doing a PhD is that you become an expert in your area. On completion of your thesis, very few people in the country and sometimes in the world will know as much about your specialist area as you. Therefore as many areas of Economics are commercially applicable, you will have a valuable skills base.

There are five research centres and units located within the Department, representing the main research interests of the Department:

• Irish Centre for Social Generontology (ICSG)
• Centre for Innovation and Structural Change (CISC)
• Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Research Unit (ENRE)
• Irish Centre for Rural Transformation and Sustainability (ICERTS)

For more information on current research and research opportunities, please check the Research section of this web site.

To be admitted to the MPhil/PhD programme, you must complete an MPhil application form through the Postgraduate Applications Centre. The application form includes details of coursework completed, and a research proposal. The Department needs to ensure that your coursework and research proposal form an appropriate basis for research, and that a suitable supervisor is available.

The minimum entry requirement is the completion of a taught Master’s degree in a cognate subject to an honours standard or equivalent. Whether a subject may be considered cognate is determined by the Head of Department. Occasionally exceptional students with an undergraduate degree alone will be allowed entry. Students must also have identified a supervisor for their dissertation and secured their agreement to supervise.  Overseas applicants may be required to submit the results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (T.O.E.F.L.).

Students are advised to:

1.    Contact a supervisor and discuss a potential topic. The department can only accept students for a MPhil/PhD if an appropriate member of staff is available to supervise them. Initial informal enquiries can be made to individual staff directly, or to the MPhil/PhD director. See the personnel pages for staff research interests. Prospective students must have identified a supervisor before they apply through the Postgraduate Applications Centre (PAC). Students can have one or more supervisors, with joint supervision involving staff from other university departments.

2. Develop a research proposal. Prospective students should formulate a proposal with their supervisor. The proposal must be submitted as part of the PAC application. Please follow the format outlined in the proposal form. As a guide a number of past PhD proposals are available (proposal 1, 2, 3).

3.   Apply for funding. There are a number of sources of funding for research degrees at NUI, Galway, including university studentships and fellowships from external agencies. Several of the research centres in the department offer studentships. Fees are set annually by the Governing Body of the University and therefore vary from year to year. Further information is available on the 'Fees and Funding' web pages. Your supervisor should be of help in preparing a proposal to the funding agency. The MPhil/PhD research proposal is often used as the basis as a submission for funding.

4.  Complete an MPhil Application Form through the Postgraduate Applications Centre and submit the relevant documentation to the Postgraduate Admissions Office, NUI Galway.

5.  Your application will be considered by the Department of Economics PhD Committee as well as the School of Business and Economics Board for final approval.

6.   It is possible to start studying for the MPhil/PhD at any point during the year, although for administrative purposes students normally register from 1 September. If you expect your registration to start on 1 September, you should aim to submit your application to PAC by the 30th of April.

The application steps are explained in this document. Further details of the application procedure are also available online on the Master of Philosphy (MPhil) School of Business and Economics site

Most students on the PhD program secure some form of funding. Potential areas of funding include Government of Ireland Fellowship,  Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences, Environmental Protection Agency, Teagasc Walsh Fellowships,  Skills Ireland Fellowships. The Office of the Dean of Research of the University also keeps a database of funding sources.

Other sources of financing include the European Union Marie Curie Fellowships, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank and departmental project funding sources. For the latter source, contact individual staff members. Remember, as many of the deadlines for these funding sources are early in the year, you should start thinking about the application process in September/October of the year before starting the PhD.

Fees are set annually by the Governing Body of the University and therefore, vary from year to year. Details of the current fee can be obtained from the Fees office of the University. A higher rate of fee is payable by students who, as defined in the University regulations, come from outside the EU (details available on request).

Dr. Tom Van Rensburg, MPhil/PhD Director.

Santosh R. Joshi (PhD in Economics)
Supervisor: Dr Hugh Kelley, Ms. Eithne Murphy and Dr. Kevin Hanrahan (RERC, Teagasc)

Topic of Research: Improving Forecasts of the effects of World Trade talk on Irish Economy

Applied General Equilibrium (AGE) models are widely used in policy modelling and analysis frameworks. The choice of functional form in the trade structure of such models is very important in analyzing trade policy reform scenarios.  Most AGE model use the Armington specification in their trade structure due to its simplicity and global regularity properties. However, the Armington specification is also a very restrictive functional form and contrasts with the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) of Deaton and Muellbaer which is a fully flexible functional form. It can be expected that flexible functional forms such as the AIDS will display more realistic responses for trade volumes to changes in prices than those obtained using more restrictive functional forms. This research uses the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model which is based on AGE framework. This model will be modified to incorporate the AIDS specification instead of the Armington specification in its trade structure.  The recent proposal of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) modalities on Domestic Support, Market Access and Export Subsidies will be implemented to analyze the effect on output, trade and welfare of Irish Economy.

Dr. Hugh Kelley
t: 353 91 495087
e: hugh.kelley@nuigalway.ie

Jason Loughrey (PhD in Economics)

Supervisor: Dr Cathal O'Donoghue

Topic of research: The welfare impact of macro-economic changes on agriculture and other markets.

My research is mainly about income inequality in Ireland since 1987. I am using micro data to examine the role played by a number of factors in changing the shape of the income distribution. These include demographic change, labour force participation, occupational choice and university education. I have done work on consumption data showing the inequality impact of indirect taxation and changes in relative prices. I have used statistical matching techniques to match household consumption data to household income data thereby allowing me to compare the inequality impact of indirect taxation to benefits and income taxation.

Paddy Gillespie (PhD in Economics)

Supervisor: Professor Eamon O’Shea

Topic of Research: Secondary Prevention of Heart Disease in General Practice - An Economic Evaluation

People with heart disease have a high risk of future cardiovascular incidents such as heart attack and mortality. As a result these people are targeted for specific health care interventions called secondary prevention services. The Irish Cardiovascular Health Strategy identified General Practice as the appropriate setting for secondary prevention in Ireland. This research compares two alternative approaches to providing secondary prevention in a general practice setting. Economic evaluation compares alternatives on the basis of patient health outcomes and costs incurred by both the health service and the patient. The overall objective is to inform health care policy makers as to the most cost effective means of providing secondary prevention in general practice in Ireland

Conal Duddy (Ph.D. in Economics)

Supervisor: Dr. Ashley Piggins

Topic of Research: Social Competition:Reference-Dependants and Economic Rights

Social choice theory has developed into a broad area of research
within economics, concerned with a variety of issues such as
democracy, economic rights and the distribution of goods. This
project centres around recent efforts to accommodate inexactness in
social choice theory. The project looks at different ways in which
models of preference aggregation can be made more general so that
individuals can express vagueness or uncertainty in their preferences.
It is known that different generalisations lead to very different
results and part of the work seeks to clarify the reasons for this.
In addition to preference aggregation, the new literature on judgment
aggregation will also be addressed.

Dr. Ashley Piggins
t: 353 91 492300
e: ashley.piggins@nuigalway.ie

Aoife Callan (Ph.D. in Economics)

Supervisor: Professor Eamon O'Shea

Topic of research: Eliciting preferences for technology-based community care programmes for older people in Ireland

The purpose of health and social care services is to provide support to individuals who are experiencing some level of dependency from differing needs. In addition to the more traditional forms of care provision for older people in Ireland, technology is increasingly being integrated into health and social care provision. While the effectiveness of technology is health and social care provision continues to be debated in the literature, this research aims to explore the value individuals place on technology based care programmes in the long-term care of older people in Ireland. Using a representative sample of the general population, this research provides willingness to pay values for different types of technology based care programmes as well as willlingness to pay values for more traditional forms of care programmes. Willingness to pay values along with ranking preferences are collected through a stated preference contingent valuation survey, whose theoretical foundations lie in welfare economics. Assuming a constrained utility maximization agent, we allow WTP to depend on a number of experience variables as well as socio-economic variables that can be used to check the interval validity of the WTP results. In addition to the policy implications of the survey results, a number of methodological consistency checks are conducted to ensure the robustness of the survey design.

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