Michael Dietrich
Senior Lecturer
Room 405
Tel +44 (0)114 22 23416
Fax +44 (0)114 222 3458
email : m.dietrich@sheffield.ac.uk
Biography
Mike received his MA and DPhil from the University of Sussex. He taught at a number of UK Universities before joining the University of Sheffield in 1992. He is now a Senior Lecturer in Economics. Mike is the coordinator of the European Network on the Economics of the Firm and he is the research area coordinator for the "Theory of the Firm" for The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy. He is a Scientific Committee member for Innovations, Cahiers d'économie de l'Innovation and a member of the Advisory Board member for Global Business and Economics Review. He was a founder of the journal New Political Economy, of which he was a co-editor for many years.
Teaching
I currently teach core second year Microeconomic Principles (ECN201) and the final year undergraduate option Industrial Organisation (ECN314). The first of these uses the philosophy adopted in the module textbook that I co-author. This emphasises that microeconomics involves the analysis of the behaviour and interactions of economic agents (primarily consumers, firms and the state). A central focus concerns how the decisions of agents interact to determine economic welfare. In addition it is emphasised that microeconomics is not just a body of facts, models and techniques; rather it is a way of thinking about economic problems. ECN314 develops some of the themes set out in ECN201 and considers the theoretical and empirical analysis of firm and industry behaviour. This option is therefore linked to my core research interests. Both modules attempt to engage students with a proactive approach to learning rather than seeing teaching as a passive acquisition of economic knowledge. For both modules, and particularly ECN314, emphasis is placed on students engaging with academic research in the area and viewing economics as a living and developing subject.
- ECN201 Microeconomic Principles
- ECN314 Industrial Organisation
- ECN6650 Topics in Advanced Industrial Organisation
Research Summary and PhD Student Supervision
My research is in the area of Industrial Economics. Current projects include: Modelling firm evolution using neural networks; Transaction cost economics; Evolutionary approaches to the firm; Performance and organisational characteristics of UK companies; I am interested in supervising PhD students in any of these areas, as well as the political economy of firms and organisations as well as microeconomics and decision making more generally, particularly in an interdisciplinary context.