School of Economics

Dr Murali Agastya's main research interests are in the theory of auctions, optimal selling procedures/mechanism design, learning in games and market microstructure. He is also doing some work in modelling of decision rules when individuals have to make choices with an incomplete knowledge of the rules underlying strategic situations. His main teaching interests are in game theory, finance and microeconomic theory.

Before coming to Sydney University, Murali was a lecturer at University College London and a Research Fellow of The Center for Economic Learning and Social Evolution. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has held visiting professorial positions at University of Tokyo, University of Western Ontario and Ben Gurion University, Israel.

His major publications include: "Perturbed Adaptive Dynamics in Coalition Form Games", Journal of Economic Theory, December 1999; "Adaptive Play in Multi-player Bargaining Situations", Review of Economic Studies, July 1997; and "Multi-player Bargaining Situations: A Decision Theoretic Approach", Games and Economic Behavior, January 1996.

My research is in the areas of political economy, network empirics, institutions, conflict and development. I'm passionate about using innovative data and tools to explore the world around us.

Tiho Ancev is a Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He holds degrees from Saints Cyril and Methodius University (Bachelor), University of Iceland (Master) and Oklahoma State University (PhD). His main research areas are agricultural, environmental, natural resource and energy economics. Tiho’s main contributions have been in water economics and policy, economics of energy, economics of air pollution and climate change policies, and economics of precision agriculture and agricultural input use. He has published widely on these topics in top international peer reviewed journals. Tiho has led and contributed to national and international research projects in these research areas. He is currently the Managing Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

I am a Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney. I hold a PhD in Economics from UNSW Business School (2025), supervised by Professor Arghya Ghosh, Associate Professor Anthony Asher, Associate Professor Scott Donald, and Professor Hazel Bateman.

My research sits at the intersection of industrial organisation, corporate governance, financial economics and econometric methods. I study how institutional investors — superannuation funds, index funds, and large asset managers — shape the behaviour of the firms they own, with implications for corporate governance, market competition, and sustainability.

I currently teach Financial Economics (ECON6021) and coordinate the Industrial Organisation stream of the Economics Research Project (ECON7030) at the postgraduate level.

For further information about me, please visit my personal website: rwbannabel.github.io

PhD McMaster

The main strand of his research focusses on studying the health and economic circumstances of individuals as they age with particular emphasis on late-life experiences, as well as the broader economic consequences of population ageing. A related strand of his research focuses on the interaction between the housing market and the economic outcomes. He examines how housing shapes opportunities and outcomes throughout the life cycle.

Garry Barrett completed his BEc (Hons) at the University of Sydney, and his MA and PhD at the University of British Columbia. Garry's main areas of research are labour economics, public economics and microeconometrics. Garry's research has focused on measuring economic inequality and poverty; applying consumption based measures of wellbeing; examining participation in income support programs and, more recently, analyzing the determinants of retirement behaviour and household saving. His work has been published in journals such as Econometrica,Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Econometrics Journal, Review of Income and Wealth, Canadian Journal of Economics and The Economic Record.

Brendan K Beare joined the University of Sydney as a Professor of Econometrics in July 2019. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, he was Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Professor Beare received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2007 and a Bachelor degree from the University of New South Wales in 2002.

MSc MSU, MEc NES, PhD Penn State

Oleksii Birulin's main research areas are auctions, procurement tenders, design of buying/selling mechanisms, mergers and acquisitions, and management and organization of firms.  

PhD UCLA

Anastasia received Specialist degree in applied math and computer science from Moscow State University, MA in economics from New Economic School and PhD in economics from UCLA.  She is a microeconomic theorist with interests in (1) different aspects of non-standard consumer preference (in particular limited attention/focus): decision theory, model identification from different datasets, experimental testing, market applications; (2) causality in decision-making; and (3) various topics in political economy: establishment of institutions, voter preference and electoral fraud, and more recently information.

Yee Wah Lisa Chan joined the Life Course Centre as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in August 2025, working with Professor Deborah Cobb-Douglas. She received her PhD in Economics from Monash University. Her research interests include behavioural and experimental economics, labour economics, and gender economics.

BEc (Hons) Sydney, MA Yale, PhD Sydney

Stephen Cheung uses experimental methods to uncover the structure of preferences and beliefs that guide decision making under risk and over time, as well as their effects - together with those of psychological and institutional variables - upon the behaviour and performance of markets.

Stephen is a recipient of two Australian Research Council Discovery Grants, as well as teaching awards from two Faculties of The University of Sydney. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Economic Psychology, and as one of the University's Research Integrity Advisors.

Professor Chowdhury graduated from Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh with a BSc (Hons.) in Economics, an MA in Economics from the University of Kiel, Germany and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Bonn University, Germany. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, he worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute (from 2003-2006) and the World Bank (2006-2007) in Washington DC, USA.

Deborah Cobb-Clark AO FASSA is Professor and Deputy Head (Research) in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney.

She is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course; an Officer of the Order of Australia; an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia; and a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, she was the Ronald Henderson Professor and Director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. Her research agenda centres on the effect of economic and social policy on human development, mental health, intergenerational disadvantage, sexual and racial harassment, health, old-age support, education, immigration, and youth transitions. Cobb-Clark is a former co-editor of the Journal of Population Economicsand has published more than 100 articles in leading academic journals. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan.

PhD Yale University

I am an applied micro-economist with interests in labour, health, family and housing economics. Thematically, my research focuses on inequality and socio-economic disadvantage. My research agenda applyies micro-econometric methods and exploits longitudinal and administrative data to respond to pressing economic and social issues. I aim to develop new evidence on the extent and dimensions of socioeconomic
inequality and identify the causal impact of changes in government policies and of shifts in the economic landscape on individual and household wellbeing and on inequality.

BA(Hons) Queen's, MA UBC, PhD UBC

Timothy Fisher holds a PhD and MA from the University of British Columbia and a BA (Hons) from Queen's University at Kingston. After working in the Research Department at the Bank of Canada and Department of Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University he joined the School of Economics at the University of Sydney as Associate Professor in 2004 and Professor in 2024. His primary area of research is law and economics, with a particular interest in empirical analysis of commercial bankruptcy and corporate restructuring.

Alastair is an applied microeconomist with research interests in environmental economics and climate finance. His first research focus is on how our use and generation of electricity must change as we decarbonise our economy. His second is on how to quantify the climate mitigation efforts, transition risks and net zero alignment of investors.

Christopher received his PhD in economics from the University of Oregon in 2013. His primary research field is behavioral macroeconomics and finance. His current work focuses on how boundedly rational agents forecast expected monetary and fiscal policy changes. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, Christopher was a lecturer at UNSW Business School (2013-2018) and he held a visiting position at the Reserve Bank of Australia (2016-2017).

Christian joined the School of Economics in 2017 from the Reserve Bank of Australia. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan in 2013.

PhD, New York University

James Graham receieved his PhD in Economics from New York University in 2020. James’ primary research interests are in macroeconomics and the economics of housing. Prior to his PhD, James was a Senior Economist at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

My research focuses on empirical macroeconomic modelling and forecasting of macroeconomic variables for policy analysis. My research is driven by my experience working at an Australian policy institution and ongoing interactions with policymakers since joining academia. I am particularly interested in novel methods for estimating the dynamic causal effects of policy shocks such as monetary policy on the economy. I am also interested in techniques for extracting important information from large datasets which can improve our understanding of the main drivers of economic activity or with predicting the future direction of economic activity.

Stella Huangfu joined the University of Sydney in 2006. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Toronto in 2007. Her research interests are monetary economics and theory on frictional markets. Her work has been published in top journals including the Journal of Economic Theory, International Economic Review, and European Economic Review.

PhD Duke University

MLS University of Chicago Law School

Ranae Jabri joined the School of Economics in 2023. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economics in 2022-2023. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University in 2022, a Master of Legal Studies from the University of Chicago Law School in 2020, and a B.A. in Economics-Mathematics from Columbia University in 2013. Her research and teaching interests include public economics, labor economics, and law and economics.

Jasmine joined the School of Economics in June 2022. She received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Washington and a B.A. degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how policy shocks interact with labour market frictions in affecting firms’ decisions and workers’ choices, and thus shaping aggregate outcomes.