Info

I am a Senior Lecturer in economics at the University of Manchester.

My main research interest lies in evolutionary dynamics and its applications in economics and elsewhere. I'm currently working on the following projects:

  1. Multi-dimensional social learning: Within the framework of replicator/immitative learninng it is usually the case that strategies are dimensionless and player types are usually entirely identified with single traits. This is far from realistic; each of us is composed of an ensemble of traits and behaviours, from the way we speak and dress to the subjects that we study and the professions that we choose. In a broad sense, each of us may be identified with those trait ensembles, and social and professional success often depends on the entire suite of those traits. I'm working on extensions of the immitative learning paradigm to encorporate this insight.

  2. High dimenssional fitness landscapes: evolutionary fitness is metaphircally described as a landscape, with high fitness being thought of as mountain peaks. Typically, due to high-dimensionality, a fitness landscape will be "rugged". One of my main objectives is to understand what "ruggedness" means exactly and how it relates the ability of an evolutionary processes to attain maximal fitness.

  3. High dimensional regression: I'm working on applications of fitness landscapes to regression models.

  4. Evolution of Firm Size and Growth: If all firms had the same growth rate, experienced no size related `frictions', and were born on the same day, we would have expected their size to follow a log-normal distribution (namely - the logarithm of their size would have a normal distribution). However, firms do experience size related `frictions' and some are older than others. How would such differences affect their growth and size distribution?

  5. Gravity and Trade: A staggering empirical property of international trade is that it follows a "gravity equation" - the log-trade intensity between two countries usually 1follows a linear function of the logs of their GDPs and the distance between them. I'm interested in an explanation to this phenomenon. Existing explanations relate gravity to firm size distribution. I'm exploring other venues, especially random walk models.

  6. Expectation formation: How do expectations evolve?