Ethos and History of the Department of Economics

The intellectual vision fostered by the Department of Economics at NUI Galway recognises that a flourishing academic environment is nourished best in a climate that integrates teaching and research, theory and empirical applications, in an integrated, policy oriented and interdisciplinary way. The composition and specialization of the permanent faculty, post-doctoral and other research staff and visiting faculty reflects this particular ethos that has been the driving force behind the recent research and funding successes of the department.

The research interests of the members of the department are uniquely diverse, ranging from the purely theoretical to topically applied sub-disciplines. However, such diversity is tempered by a conscious effort made by all members of the department to attempt fruitful cross-fertilization with colleagues in the form of collaborative research which, ultimately, has policy oriented implications with sound theoretical foundations.

The department provides the core undergraduate teaching modules in conventional economics along with an exposure to a range of alternative perspectives within the discipline for students from the faculties of arts, commerce and law. More specialised courses – some more technically advanced and others less demanding conceptually – are often offered for students from other faculties, to mature students and through extension facilities at outreach centres.

The department has, in recent years, successfully established several distinctive, policy-oriented, postgraduate programmes and is in the process of developing a structured doctoral degree to complement them. As a result, the permanent core members of the faculty have been ably supplemented by 5 researchers and over 25 doctoral students, almost all of them completely funded by research grants won competitively.

Departmental specializations range from social choice theory, methodology and the philosophy of the social sciences, macrodynamics and computable economics at the abstract, pure-theory end of the spectrum, to health economics, social care, environmental economics, rural and regional development, micro-simulated studies of welfare and poverty alleviation programmes, international macroeconomics, and studies of financial market dynamics at the more applied and policy-oriented end.

Several members of the department are nationally and internationally recognised academic leaders in the above fields, with recognised publications in leading journals. Several members of the department are, simultaneously, directors or senior members of national and international research centres. Furthermore, staff members also act as senior members of a range of national and European policy organizations.

The department is traditional, in that it links back to one of the masters in 19th century political economy and first professor of Economics in the department – John Elliot Cairnes. It is neo-classical in that neo-classical economics is at the core of its teaching programmes. It is eclectic in that it provides its students with a healthy criticism of neo-classical economics, particularly in its applications to economic problems like development, public choice and public policy, and exposes them to other interpretations of economic reality – behavioural, evolutionary, institutional and computable economics. The diverse backgrounds and research interests of the academic staff and the freedom and encouragement to explore economic alternatives, provides an enriching milieu for students, researchers and visiting scholars.