INHABIT
Interdisciplinary work on health, environment and urban systems, linking environmental economics with air quality, climate and liveability.
Research
My research is unified by the economics of globalisation — how trade, investment and firms interact with the environment, energy systems and economic development. The themes below organise that work; the full record sits on the Publications page.
My early work established new ways of measuring intra-industry trade and its consequences for labour markets. Over two decades at Birmingham this has broadened into a wide-ranging applied programme: the environmental consequences of trade and foreign investment, the economics of China and East Asia, energy systems and the low-carbon transition, and the economic impact of natural disasters. A common thread is my creative use of data — from firm-level censuses and satellite imagery to machine learning — to answer policy-relevant questions with credible empirical evidence.
§ 01
International Trade & Globalisation
The measurement of intra-industry trade and its consequences — for labour markets, for firms' decisions to import and export, and for the structure of global production. Much of this work focuses on the trading behaviour of individual firms.
- Intra-industry trade
- Trade & labour-market adjustment
- Multinationals & FDI
- Firm-level trade
- Global value chains
Key outputs
§ 02
Trade, Investment & the Environment
Whether trade and foreign direct investment help or harm the environment — the 'pollution haven' hypothesis, the effect of environmental regulation on where industry locates, and the spatial pattern of firms' carbon emissions.
- Pollution havens
- Environmental regulation
- FDI & the environment
- Firm carbon emissions
- Industrial restructuring
§ 03
Economics of China & East Asia
The Chinese and East Asian economies viewed through the lens of firms — the location of foreign investment, energy intensity and productivity, urbanisation, and the role of governance and corruption in shaping economic outcomes.
- Chinese economy
- FDI location
- Firm productivity
- Energy intensity
- Urbanisation
§ 04
Energy & the Low-Carbon Transition
Energy systems and the shift to a low-carbon economy: the reliability of electricity supply and its effect on firms, and the economics of electric vehicles — critical-material demand, battery recycling and real-world vehicle longevity.
- Energy economics
- Electric vehicles
- Critical materials
- Battery recycling
- Electricity & firms
§ 05
Natural Disasters & Climate
The economic consequences of typhoons, floods and wildfires — measured from outer space where conventional data fall short — and how those shocks feed through to property prices, firms and even political behaviour.
- Typhoons & cyclones
- Floods & flood risk
- Wildfires
- Night-lights & satellite data
- Disasters & firms
§ 06
Economic History & Novel Data
Bringing new data and methods to applied economics — machine learning and synthetic controls for air quality and policy evaluation, satellite imagery for the environment, and the construction of long-run historical datasets.
- Machine learning
- Satellite & big data
- Air quality & health
- Economic & environmental history
- Textual analysis
Key outputs
Recurring threads
Over the years I have also published on:
- Immigration & labour markets
- Productivity & exporting
- Economic history
- Air quality & health
- Critical-material supply chains
Research group
I founded and led the Department's
- Trade, Environment, Development and Energy (TEDE)
Current work
Funded research in motion
Selected active and recent funded work from the April 2026 CV and University of Birmingham PURE profile, connecting the research programme to current policy questions.
UK Climate Change Risk Assessment
Evidence for climate-risk assessment, connecting the natural-disasters and climate strand to policy-facing evaluation.
Agents in international trade
Research on international trade mechanisms and intermediaries, extending long-running work on firms, importing, exporting and globalisation.
Greening UK trade
Firm-level transactions and supply-chain integration work on how trade relationships shape the greening of UK firms.
PyroLife and ReLIB
Collaborative work on wildfire risk, lithium-ion battery recycling and critical-material supply chains for the low-carbon transition.