Economics

A four year Chair in Economics at the University’s Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy (FEMA) instantly propelled the Department of Economics to scaleup its ambition and enhance the quality of its content and offerings.

Anchored by the Research Trust, the development came after the Central Bank of Malta donated €180,000 in 2012, to be used over four years.

The Central Bank of Malta has now renewed the agreement to establish a Central Bank of Malta Chair in Economics with the University of Malta’s Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy for a period of three years starting from October 2016 with the possibility to renew thereafter.

The funds have enabled the Department of Economics to institute three chairs as three foreign visiting lecturers are now teaching honours students exciting topics from economic game theory to intermediate econometrics.

The end result is that the students who are graduating have undergone high quality teaching and are well prepared for jobs in places such as the Central Bank or in top-notch audit firms.

Cost-benefit analysis, external cost estimations, input-output estimation and other areas in economics regularly require research and analysis.

The Department is currently proposing research on underground economy estimation in Malta. Another proposal is to research the estimation of the financial services sector’s contribution to the GDP.

Raising standards, enhancing content

The donation by the Central Bank if Malta, has obviously raised the standard of our content and quality of lectures at the University of Malta. Research is important for our students. If you look at the dissertations by our students, they mostly go for applied research. This helps them to learn the art of analysis and, the, application. The donation by the Central Bank of Malta was historic in that it was the first to be given to the Research Trust by a public institution.

Dr Philip von Brockdorff – Head of Department of Economics