A Year in Economics

It couldn’t be a more important time to study economics. We’ve had a very productive year at the school, despite the pandemic, working on groundbreaking research as well as preparing the next generation of economists with a skillset and the critical awareness to head out into the world and make a difference.

The pandemic didn’t stop us…

  • Year-in-Industry student Tayla-Leigh Dos Santos decided to see her placement year at Kimberly Clark during a global pandemic ‘as an opportunity’. Little did she know that toilet roll was about to be a currency all of its own and eCommerce set to become a major component of every business.
  • The Economics Society were able to adapt their annual Economics Summit to host a bigger and better virtual event. Society Committee Member, Shivali Raichura, blogged about the highlights.
  • What can ‘economics’ and ‘epidemiology’ learn from each other? This workshop organised by Professor Miltos Makris with Flavio Toxvaerd (University of Cambridge), discussed the complex relationship between epidemiological dynamics, economic decisions and government interventions, specifically in the context of a global pandemic.

Student and staff winners

  • Mercy Adeniji was the 2021 Business Start-up Journey Winner, a competition open to all students across the University, for her business VeGate – a Vegan food delivery service.
  • Joel Pointon won a School dissertation prize for his work on the ethnicity wage gap concluding that Economics needs to focus its efforts on this form of inequality.
  • Professor Jagjit Chadha received an OBE in the Queen’s June Birthday Honours list, which had a special focus on the extraordinary efforts made by individuals across the country during the pandemic.
  • How Effective was Eat Out to Help Out? PhD candidate Yannis Galanakis won the Summer Vacation Research Competition (SVRC) for his project examining the impact of the policy.

Everyday Economics

  • Our new Outreach programme, Everyday Economics, designed by students to teach everyday finances to 16-18-year-olds, launched in schools across the country.
  • We launched an exciting new undergraduate programme in Economics with Data Science, one of the first of its kind in the UK.

Ending in Celebration!

  • Unable to gather for graduation as normal this year, the School of Economics came together to celebrate our final-year students in The Gulbenkian with some help from KMTV – not in our usual grand style in Canterbury Cathedral, but in a livestream which made for a different, perhaps more personal kind of celebration, sharing students’ memories and stories of their time at Kent. Watch here

Keep up to date with the latest news from the School of Economics