Experts

Rob Simmons teaches Sports Economics at the Lancaster University Management School. Rob has published many articles in economics and statistics journals on professional sports covering pay and performance of players, audience demand, corruption, referee behaviour and betting markets. Current work includes analysis of European football covering pay disparities and also the effects of Video Assistant Referee technology.

Melanie Simms is Professor of Work and Employment at the University of Glasgow. She researchers trade union organising, worker voice, young people’s transition into the labour market and the future of work. She has written and published widely in academic journals and published What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Future of Work in 2019 with SAGE.

Helen is the Director of the Centre for Evidence-based Public Services, and a Research Affiliate of CEPR. She has given policy advice at HM Treasury, HMRC, BEIS, DfT, DIT, the European Commission and the OECD. She was previously Director of Productivity and Innovation Research at the IFS. Her research covers urban economics and the effects of place-based policies, productivity, innovation and foreign direct investment.

Carl Singleton is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Stirling. His research mainly focuses on macroeconomics and labour economics, with particular interests in understanding business cycle fluctuations, wage determination and issues of economic inequality. He also carries out research in sports economics and betting markets as part of the University of Reading’s Football Research Centre.

Cian is a researcher at the Wales Governance Centre, Cardiff University. Having graduated from the University of Warwick and University of St Andrews, he joined the centre’s Fiscal Analysis programme. His current research focuses on devolved taxes, local government and public finance in Wales.

Pawel is a Research Economist analysing structural issues at the Bank of England. His research interests include analysing effects of economic uncertainty and factors driving corporate decisions, in particular investment and cash holding decisions. Pawel specialises in analysing firm-level and survey data. He is part of the team that developed the Decision Maker Panel with academics from Stanford and Nottingham University. The panel is the largest timely source of firm-level data in the UK.