Bernard Fingleton has degrees in Economics (PhD, Cambridge), Geography (BA, PhD, University of Wales), Land Economy (MPhil, Cambridge). He also has a Professional qualification as a Chartered Statistician.
Bernard specializes in spatial economics, economic geography and spatial econometrics, focussing on cross-country, regional and local disparities in productivity, employment, wages and real estate prices. He has used spatial econometric methods to test non-nested hypotheses about the causes of differential levels of economic development, both within and between countries, embodying either increasing or constant returns to scale and spatial interaction effects. Most recently he has been working on the methodology and application of spatial panel models with spatial dependence, and has recently published papers setting out the approach appropriate to moving average error processes. His future work will focus on the interface of the ‘new economic geography’, spatial econometrics and spatial panel models. The new economic geography integrates increasing returns mechanisms and micro-economic assumptions within the mainstream of economic theory, but the testing and application of this new theory is in its infancy and poses some serious methodological issues. Nevertheless the theory, as it develops, should have relevance for our understanding of national and international variations in poverty and welfare.
Personal Interests
Bernard’s main interests focus around his family. He is also keen on the great outdoors, and loves natural history, walking, cycling and keeping fit. He is also a keen football fan, and a lifelong supporter of Manchester United. Culturally, his focus is more Celtic than Anglo-Saxon, and he admires almost everything coming from the Mediterranean basin, particularly the architecture and art of the Classical period and Renaissance. He attempts to speak French and Italian, and promises to take these up really seriously at some point in the not too distant future. |
