Biography

Euan Phimister holds an appointment as Professor of Economics in the Business School and is also Professor of Development Finance at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa. 

He is a resource economist with long standing research interests in household behaviour in imperfect markets.  His recent work focusses on links between energy, rural development and finance, including understanding the interrelationships between access to energy, food production and the governance of common resources in Sub-Saharan Africa. A significant proportion of his work has involved economic modelling including current work on modelling debt sustainability in resource rich countries. 

In recent years he has been involved in a range of UK Research Council funded inter-disciplinary projects focussed on Sub-Saharan Africa, involving partners from Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda.    

He has spent over 20 years as full time faculty at Aberdeen and within the Business School he has been Deputy Head of School, School Director of Research and  School Director of Resources.  He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was the first Director of the School's MSc in Petroleum, Energy Economics and Finance. He is an Honorary Associate of the James Hutton Institute and is a Panel member for Main Panel A: Sub-panel 6 (Agriculture) in the UK Research Excellence Framework 2020.

External Memberships

REF2014 & REF2021 Agriculture sub-panel member.  Associate Editor Journal of Agricultural Economics. 

Research Overview

Household Economics, Access to Energy and Energy Poverty,  Debt Sustainability in Resource Rich Countries, Decision Making in Health, Micro-credit 

Current Research

A main focus for his research is on understanding the interrelationships between access to credit, energy and food production and governance of common resources in Sub-Saharan Africa.  This builds on long standing  work around (farm) household behaviour and imperfect markets and links with current research on micro-credit repayment performance in Turkey.  In addition he is also undertaking research on modelling debt sustainability in resource rich countries, on decision making within DCEs in Health and the Environment. 

He is currently leading a Global Challenges Research Fund project (RALENTIR) on land and soil degradation in Ethiopia, aiming to improve how land conservation measures are designed so benefits to local communities are increased while safeguarding soil conservation.    He is also involved in the development of economic and financial analyses with an international team of ecologists aiming to improve invasive species management in Latin America.  Previously, he was PI of an interdisplinary project funded by the ESRC on the water, food energy nexus (IPORE) and  Co-I on a NERC-DfiD funded project on building resilience to drought in Ethiopia (BREAD); and PI on a British Academy funded project examining the use of existing large scale datasets in Sub-Saharan Africa with partners in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda.