Research Quality at Queen's University Management School

Every six years or so, the UK university system is subject to a research assessment exercise (currently known as the Research Excellent Framework - REF). The stated purpose of this exercise is to guide government funding for universities to those doing the best research. The 2014 REF assessed the quality of research outputs (books and journal articles), the quality of research environment, and the societal impact of research over the period 2008-2013. Each broad university discipline got a score somewhere between 1* (not good) and 4* (top of the pile).

The results of REF 2014 were released just before Christmas. Many university departments and universities were delighted with the high grade point average (GPA) scores they achieved. But a deeper analysis of the results reveals that there was a lot of game playing taking place. First, some university departments only submitted their best researchers, which pushed up their GPAs. But this doesn't reflect the true research quality of that particular department. Second, some universities created research institutes (for an example click here) which excluded most staff in the department or faculty, but for the purposes of the REF, the research institute was the department. Click here to read more about REF game playing.

Queen's University Belfast did not engage in REF game playing. In terms of GPA, it ranked 42nd out of 101 institutions, but when its GPA is weighted by the percentage of staff submitted to REF (research intensity), it jumps to 8th in the UK (click here)! In terms of Queen's University Management School (QUMS), we jump from joint 34th to 9th in the UK! The Association of Business School's analysis of the REF results, which looks at breadth and depth of research, places QUMS 13th in the UK - click here for their league table.

Overall, the 2014 REF results suggest that Queen's University Management School is in the top decile of UK business schools. Why has it been able to achieve this? Two reasons. First, it has a rich research culture inhabited by remarkable academics. Second, it has amazing PhD, MSc and BSc students who inspire academics to engage in world-leading research.

The Economics of Global Warming

The Berkeley Earth Project , an independent study of global warming, has found that the earth has become a degree warmer over the past half century. However, the statistical uncertainty surrounding pre-1920 estimates makes it very hard to say much about long-term trends - click here for graph . This is one of my concerns with the global warming debate - we simply don't have trustworthy long-run data which looks at temperature changes over the last millennium (or two). My second concern with the global warming debate is that it is very hard to prove any sort of casual link between global warming and human activity. The scientists may be able to show correlation between global warming and our production of carbon dioxides etc., but correlation is not causation. My third concern with the debate is that those who are sceptical or agnostic are stereotyped as flat-earthers or intellectually-challenged crackpots. This only stifles debate and the progress of science itself.

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles, co-authored with my colleague Will Quinn , is forthcoming in August. It is published by Cambridge University Press and is available for pre-order at Amazon , Barnes and Noble , Waterstones and Cambridge University Press .

The Failure of Herstatt Bank

As an undergraduate, I was taught about the failure of Herstatt Bank in 1974 and Herstatt risk. This bank was only the 35th largest bank in Germany at the time so why would anyone be interested in studying its failure? Herstatt failed because of its involvement in risky foreign exchange business. When it closed its doors on 26 June 1974, counterparty banks (mainly in New York) had not received dollars due to them because of time-zone differences - this is known as settlement risk. The cross-jurisdictional implications of its failure resulted in the Bank for International Settlements setting up the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and Herstatt's failure was a key reason for the establishment of real-time gross settlements systems, which ensures that payments between two banks are executed in real time. The Bank of England's Ben Norman has an interesting post on Herstatt over at the Bank's new blog ( Bank Underground ). As well as giving an excellent overview of

Finance: Past, Present and Future

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