Economics is among the top departments in the UK for research. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), 98 percent of the department's submitted outputs were classified as either world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*). As a discipline Economics is defined as much by its methods as by its areas of research. As a department we have long-standing strengths in economic theory, structural and applied econometrics, macroeconomics and finance.  Current and planned research themes include development and health, social networks and spatial interactions, education, children and social policy, search-and-matching in labour markets, matching and resource allocations, the future of labour markets, the interaction between humans and machines at work and in markets.