Dr Theodore Koutmeridis is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. He holds a PhD in Economics from Warwick University where he was an Onassis Scholar and a Royal Economic Society Junior Fellow. His research on inequality, poverty and crime has won various awards, such as the Sir Alec Cairncross Prize in Economics, the 1st Prize of the European Science Days Interdisciplinary Award, and has been featured in the media and in various symposia, such as his “Underground Economy” TEDx talk and his “Crime and Prices” video. His work has been awarded grants for research, teaching, impact, engagement, and is funded via a £700,000 ESRC-DFID grant for parental practices in Indian public schools. He is fully committed to outreach and impact, contributing to numerous consultations, policy reports and to a REF impact case study. He is affiliated with the Institute of Labor Economics IZA, the Advanced Research Centre ARC and Scotland Beyond Net Zero, while he was a Visiting Scholar with Principal’s Fellowship at Columbia University and at UC Berkeley. His work spans the conventional disciplinary, methodological and national boundaries with research conducted in India, USA, UK, Japan and Poland among others, and with teaching, research and engagement activities in Prague, Warsaw, Columbia and Berkeley. He is the recipient of the British Academy Rising Star Award and the RSE Henry Duncan Medal, which according to the Royal Society of Edinburgh he was awarded ‘‘for his outstanding work in the field of economics where he combines a clear mastery of the microeconomic methodology, a keen instinct for its empirical applications and a deep commitment to engagement activities.’’

• Personal Website

Theo Koutmeridis works on labor economics and on the interaction of economics and law, focusing mainly on crime, wage inequality and market failures, such as informational and financial frictions. 

Theo is also a member of the Applied Economics research cluster.

Areas of expertise

Research areas:

• Labour economics
• Law and economics
• Political economy
• Development and growth

Research focus:

• Inequality
• Crime
• Disadvantage
• Technology and innovation
• Behavioural economics and finance

List by: Type | Date

Grants and Awards

• ESRC-DFID research grant, "Disadvantage and Participation Accountability Processes: Theory and Evidence from School Development and Management Committees in Karnataka, India", (with S. Ghosal, C. Chapman, M. Schweisfurth, P. Dalton) £700,000, 2018-2024.
• ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Grant, Copyright in the Digital Economy, £10,000, 2016-2017
• "Behaviour, Structure and Interventions" Interdisciplinary Research Network Grant, Research Strategy & Innovation Office, with S. Ghosal, £8,000 per year, 2014-
• British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, £15,000, 2017-2018
• Principal’s Early Career Mobility Award, £3,500, 2016
• Elected Member, Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy, £2,500, 2014-2019
• Sir Alec Cairncross Prize in Economics, £1,000, 2014
• Royal Economic Society Junior Fellowship, £8,000, 2012-2013
• Interdisciplinary ESD Award for the Best Paper, 1st Prize, €3,000, 2011
• Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Warwick, 2010-11

PhD Supervision

• Jaakko Miettinen (PhD in Economics, 2014-2018, fully funded with a CREATe Microeconomics Scholarship - completed)
• Prateek Chandra Bhan (PhD in Economics, 2017-2021, fully funded with a College of Social Sciences PhD Scholarship - completed)
• Jinglin Wen (PhD in Economics, 2018-2022, fully funded with a PhD Scholarship - completed)
• Erika Leigh Anderson (PhD in Economic and Social History, 2018-2022 - completed)
• Daniel Siwecki (PhD in Economics, 2019-2023, fully funded with a College of Social Sciences PhD Scholarship - completed)
• Kaizhao Guo (PhD in Economics, 2019-2024)
• Tao Xinyu (PhD in Economics, 2020-2025)
• Anh Ngo (PhD in Economics, 2020-2025)
• Selassi Spence (PhD in Economics, 2024-2028, fully funded with a James McCune Smith PhD Scholarship)

PhD Thesis Examiner

• Antonio Parlavecchio - "Essays on a frictional labour market with inactive workers" (PhD in Economics, 2013-2017)
• Seemanti Ghosh - "Socioeconomic adversity and perseverance: a role for locus of control? Impact, mitigation and welfare analysis" (PhD in Economics, Adam Smith Award for Best PhD Thesis, 2014-2018)
• Moritz Mosenhauer - "Essays on counter strategies against mistakes in information processing with various applications" (PhD in Economics, 2015-2020)
• Andres Azqueta-Gavaldon - "Text-mining in macroeconomics: the wealth of words" (PhD in Economics, 2015-2020)

PhD Topics Supervised

Past PhD Supervised Projects:

• Jaakko Miettinen: "Essays on the Economics of Copyright" (PhD in Economics, 2014-2018, fully funded with a CREATe Microeconomics Scholarship - completed)
• Prateek Chandra Bhan: "Essays in the Economics of Hope" (PhD in Economics, 2017-2021, fully funded with a College of Social Sciences PhD Scholarship - completed)
• Jinglin Wen: "Essays on Gender and Criminal Justics" (PhD in Economics, 2018-2022, fully funded with a PhD Scholarship - completed)
• Erika Leigh Anderson: "Essays on Corporate Social Responsibility" (PhD in Economic and Social History, 2018-2022 - completed)
• Daniel Siwecki: "Essays on Universal Basic Income" (PhD in Economics, 2019-2023, fully funded with a College of Social Sciences PhD Scholarship - completed)

Courses taught

• Labour economics
• Development and growth
• Behavioural economics & finance
• Economics of innovation
• Macroeconomics
• Econometrics
• Research methods

PhD research methods training

• Identifying causal effects
• Finding gaps in the related literature
• Advice for PhD thesis viva

Current teaching

• ECON5073 Behavioural economics: Theory and applications (PG) | University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School, Department of Economics
• ECON5101 Understanding development: A multidisciplinary approach (PG) | University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School, Department of Economics

Office hours

• Wednesdays 16:30-18:30 (please sign up here before passing by) or email me for an appointment

Contact details

• Adam Smith Business School & PGT Hub, 2 Discovery Place, Glasgow G11 6EY
• Office 534, Floor 5

Large-scale fieldwork

• In Karnataka, India, to examine the impact and the channels through which such impact occurs, of empowerment training (e.g. ReflectionAction!) on the ability of disadvantaged groups to engage in collective action (ensuring effective participation in School Management and Development Committees) in the presence of more socially and optically powerful agents and groups. Funded by ESRC-DFID, £700,000, 2018-2021. In collaboration with Sayantan Ghosal (Glasgow), Patricio Dalton (Tilburg), Chris Chapman (Glasgow), Michelle Schweisfurth (Glasgow), Meena Nair (Public Affairs Centre) and Satyajeet Nanda (Public Affairs Centre).

Impact and knowledge exchange

• NHS Scotland, Project for Counter Fraud Services to recover, £1-£5 million per year, 2016 onwards, ongoing project, potential impact case study for REF (funded by the NHS).
• Copyright and Digital Innovation: Supplying Copyright Evidence to Industry, Policy and Media, 2017-2018 (ESRC-IAA, £10,000).

Policy work and outreach

Policy papers

• Brexit and the Scottish Economy: Risks, Opportunities and the Revenge of the Disadvantaged. In Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland’s Brexit Report: “Brexit: The Impact on Scotland”, September 2017. Authored the section on “The Economy” (2017).
• Inequality: Good for the Rich, Bad for the Economy? Royal Society of Edinburgh, Advice Paper (16-23), September 2016. Co-authored this paper as a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy (2016).
• Public consultation by the European Commission on the evaluation and modernisation of the legal framework for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. CREATe Centre: University of Glasgow. April 2016. Co-authored this paper on behalf of the CREATe Centre (2016).

Consultancy and policy advising

• National Health Service (NHS Prevention Team, Counter Fraud Services, fieldwork to recover £1-£5 million per year).
• Her Majesty’s Government (Intellectual Property Office at the UK Government).
• Royal Society of Edinburgh (Working Groups on "Inequality", "Brexit and the Economy", ”Review of Financial Support for Students”, "Brexit and Migration" & "Brexit and International Students").

Media coverage and interviews

• “Talking Headlines with Theo Koutmeridis: Media, Brexit and the Scottish Economy”, Research the Headlines, 21 September 2017, Interviewed by Dr Emma Carroll for RSE’s Young Academy of Scotland’s online blog.
• “Rising Star - Dr Theodore Koutmeridis”, ReSourcE, August 2017, Royal Society of Edinburgh’s magazine.
• “Increasing HE participation increases wage inequality”, Times Higher Education, Issue 2,270, 1-6 Sept 2016.