School of Finance and Management

Professor Ciaran Driver

Key information

Roles
School of Finance and Management Professor in Financial Economics
Qualifications
BE (NUI) MA (Lums) MSc (London) PhD (CNAA) FAcSS
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
540
Email address
cd12@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
0207 898 4993
Support hours
Tuesdays 3:00pm - 4:00pm online (by appointment, see bio for details)

Biography

Office hours

Tuesdays 3:00pm — 4:00pm online, please book a slot 24 hours in advance or by arrangement online or in-person (email: cd12@soas.ac.uk)

Research interests

Ciaran Driver (Professor of Economics in the School of Finance and Management) pursues research on capital investment, innovation, corporate governance, and economic policy. Current projects include a study of UK dividend behaviour; South African business survey forecasts; UK capital investment constraints; and stakeholding theory. He co-authored with Paul Temple The Unbalanced Economy, Palgrave-Macmillan (2014) and co-edited  with Grahame Thompson Corporate Governance in Contention , Oxford University Press 2018. Recent articles include the topics: Research & Development (Research Policy 2012); economics of advertising (Journal of Economic Surveys 2017); executive pay (Industrial and Corporate Change 2017). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Trustee of the New Economics Foundation.

Potential PhD candidates should have a Masters with distinction in Economics OR in a cognate discipline such as statistics or political science and be well versed in both qualitative and quantitative research.

Some candidates may prefer to pursue the MRes pathway available in the School of Finance and Management. Research students may complete three papers or work in a traditional thesis format. Indicative topics are listed below but related themes may be proposed. Interdisciplinary topics are welcome as long as the candidate has a solid undergraduate foundation in a single discipline.

Corporate Governance: Corporate governance, managerial style and productivity effects
  Corporate governance models with real option theory
Financial Economics: Theory and econometrics of dividends, capital investment, and intangible investment such as R&D.
Economics of Innovation: Theorising the links between innovation and advertising spending
  Intellectual property protection design for local economic development
Economics: Concepts and measures of economic uncertainty; effects on company investment
  Debates on South African trade policy: theory and empirics
Economic Policy: Regeneration of low performing areas

Publications

Contact Ciaran