How did you first become interested in economics?
As a kind of offshoot of human geography. We’d been learning in school about both GDP and the Spearman Rank Correlation, and one day in the summer holidays after the 2002 World Cup I found myself wondering what the correlation was between a country's GDP and its position in the FIFA World Rankings. You could work it out in Excel in about five minutes, but I didn't know that so I spent the whole afternoon trying to calculate the correlation by hand. Yes, I really was that cool at age 14.
I seem to remember I never finished the calculation because I was distracted by some important event, like the evening broadcast of Neighbours, but I was pleased to read several years later that the economist Stefan Szymanski and journalist Simon Kuper dedicated a chapter of their book Why England Lose to this topic.
Why did you choose to study at the School of Economics at Nottingham?
I'd read a bit about behavioural economics. It sounded like it would be a lot of fun to learn more, and the recent Global Financial Crisis had helped expose how moronically absurd a lot of neoclassical economic theory had become.
Choosing Nottingham as the place to study behavioural economics was not a difficult decision, as the school is home to the world-leading CeDEx group and had initiated a ground-breaking MSc in the subject.
What are your fondest memories of your time at the school?
I was lucky to have wonderful supervisors, Abigail Barr and Daniele Nosenzo, for my PhD. More generally, the CeDEx group is full of outstanding people and I benefited immeasurably from studying within it.
There is a very collaborative environment; everyone within the group is willing to offer you help when you need it, which for a junior researcher is an unbelievably valuable thing.
What advice would you give to someone considering or about to start a course at the school?
Look into what opportunities there are to go on exchange during your degree (this doesn't really apply for the MSc, but definitely at undergraduate and PhD level). I never got around to doing this during any of my degrees, but I feel I should have done. And don't panic if some or other module seems impossibly incomprehensible to begin with – everything will become clear in the end if you look at it enough times…
What do you enjoy most about your career so far?
I love living in China! It's just a great adventure to come somewhere where life is so different. You see something here almost every day that you never imagined would exist. And the pace of change is astonishing. When I got here Ningbo's metro consisted of two lines, but the traffic gets a little congested in rush hour so they’re saying, no messing around, let's just build another five lines by 2020. That kind of thing doesn't happen in many other parts of the world.
And what are the main challenges?
Obviously there are a lot of challenges involved in trying to become a good teacher – it's a steep learning curve early in your career. But the university is very supportive particularly in providing on-the-job training.
The other main challenge in Ningbo is avoiding being run over at the crossroads by the silent but deadly electric scooters that every man, woman and dog rides here.
Have your experiences at the school helped you?
I'm an economics teacher so it would be fairly worrying if they hadn't!
Are you still in touch with your fellow alumni and, if so, how do you stay in contact?
I particularly stayed in touch with a group of friends I lived with in Broadgate Park during my masters. We had a lot of great times over the year in Nottingham and have since met up in such exotic locations as Kuala Lumpur, Cornwall and Oldham.
Why is staying in touch important to you?
Most people make friends for life at university. You might go for a while without seeing some people, but you pick up right where you left off. I have great memories from my masters year.
Postgrad halls of residence are meant to be pretty quiet, but in terms of enjoying uni life our block could certainly give the freshers a run for their money! I don't recall whether or not this endeared ourselves to our resident warden…
Have you been back to the school since you graduated?
I haven't been back since my viva, as it's a little far to pop in for a chat. But from my window I can see the University of Nottingham Ningbo's School of Economics, so that’s the next best thing!
I’m still working on projects with my PhD supervisors and others within the school, so I'm closely connected and looking forward to my next visit.