Meet Kyriakos Neanidis, Reader in Macroeconomics, in his academic spotlight, he talks about his recent research and his contribution to teaching at Manchester.

Background

All my degrees, BSc/MSc/PhD, are in Economics because this is the field that attracted me very early on due to bringing together several aspects of social sciences under the umbrella of Economics. This is also reflected in my research which spans core Economics areas such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, macroprudential regulation, bank lending, economic growth, and other general areas that include the economics of crime and corruption, and the long-run implications of colonialism.

After completing my PhD in the US, having been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue advanced studies there, I have joined the University of Manchester in 2004 at an exciting time for the University following the successful merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

On Manchester

When I joined The University of Manchester, there were colleagues working in the area I have specialised in during my PhD studies, i.e., Macroeconomics, conducting research in subfields of direct interest to me. These common interests led to joint research, authorship, and supervision of PhD students. The addition of new colleagues in the Department of Economics over the years in Macroeconomics and beyond has enriched the research environment, diversified the methods of research, and the teaching portfolio we offer to our students.

My Research

I am a big believer in the “big picture” and this is exactly what Macroeconomics stands for in the discipline. The impact decisions taken by individuals, households, firms, and the government have for the society, nationally or internationally, and the various trade-offs that arise at the aggregate level from these choices. Identifying the macroeconomic effects of decision-makers choices is at the forefront of my research. Furthermore, in recent years, the development of new tools and techniques and the greater data availability has allowed for a more in-depth macroeconomic analysis in tackling important policy-relevant questions for countries at every stage of economic development.

The findings of recent research (including mine) are incorporated into my teaching, which along with the well-established older theories and views, reflect the way I educate my students to make them think about current economic phenomena and future possible events.

In general, my work is to assess the effectiveness of various public policies in achieving their objectives, such as government revenue collection policies, government expenditure policies, public research and development policies, and policies that tackle corruption and criminal behaviour.

The current focus of my work is on policies that examine financial stability in the entirety of the financial sector, known as macroprudential policies. For example, I have worked on how banking sector regulation can stabilise capital flows in countries so as to achieve maximum benefit for economic growth.

The financial system plays a significant role in the real economy by acting as a mediator between those that provide savings (i.e., households) and those that require investment funding (i.e., firms). The government regulates these activities with macroprudential policies so that banks do not take up too much risk and create instability in the system, with the extreme outcome of banking and financial crises. There is much that macroprudential regulation can do to ensure financial stability without compromising the objectives of low inflation, high growth, and equal distribution of income, typically seen as the objectives of fiscal and monetary policies.

Postgraduate teaching

I am acting as lecturer for the core Macroeconomics unit for the MA Economics. Hence, MA Economics students will be seeing me a lot during their first semester at UoM lecturing and tutoring them on the subject. I also act as supervisor for the dissertations of MSc Economics and MSc Financial Economics students, which take place over the summer. Students will have the opportunity to work under my supervision for their thesis, assuming they wish to specialise in the area of Macroeconomics.

I have also spent a few years leading the postgraduate Economics courses, so if I can give a word of advice to incoming postgraduate students is that postgraduate study is not only about the lectures and course content covered in class (or online!), but mainly the material you will be exploring on your own. This represents the first step toward conducting independent research and can be extremely rewarding—of course, you should be using the help and guidance of your professors, who are there to advise you!

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