SIRE Chair in Economics
- About
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- Email Address
- kabender@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 273411
- Office Address
- School/Department
- Business School
Biography
I specialise in applied microeconomics, particularly interested in labour economics. Early in my career I focused on the role of institutions and labour market outcomes, looking at differences between union and nonunion workers, public and private sector workers, and the subjective wellbeing of retirees and retirement behaviour. More recently I have been looking at the interactions of health and labour economics, particularly the effect of different kinds of labour contracts on stress and the health of workers. In addition, I have previously done research on issues around in the educational and skills mismatch in the labour market, examining its incidence, causes and effects, particularly among the very highly educated.
I am an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Industrial Relations and a Research Fellow of the IZA.
In addition to working at the Unversity of Aberdeen, I have held previous positions at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the US Social Security Administration, as well as visiting positions at Louisiana State University, University of Potsdam, Giessen University and the National Institute for Labour Studies at Flinders University in Australia.
Performance Related Pay and Health
Research in economics have established a link between performance-related pay (PRP) – where workers’ pay is contingent upon their performance at work – and poor health. However, the causal direction of this relationship is not known. The aim of the project is to explore this relationship using an experimental work task and by measuring stress through cortisol. This paradigm will then be altered to measure other effects that may influence the relationship between PRP and stress.
Qualifications
- PhD Economics1994 - Duke University
- MA Economics1992 - Duke University
- BA Economics1990 - Furman University
Memberships and Affiliations
- Internal Memberships
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Director of External Engagement and Impact for the Business School.
Member of the Centre for Labour Market Research (CeLMR) and the Scottish Experimental Economics Laboratory (SEEL) and Co-Director of the Just Transition Lab (JTL).
- External Memberships
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Member of the Chartered Association of Business Schools Research Committee.
Nonexecutive Board Member of the Keith and Strathisla Regional Partnership (InKeith).
Prizes and Awards
Principal's 2025 Award for Best Interdisciplinary Research Group for the Just Transition Lab.
- Research
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Research Overview
Labour Economics, Subjective Well-being, Health Economics, Economics of Ageing
Member of the Centre for Labour Market Research (CeLMR), the Scottish Experimental Economics Laboratory (SEEL) and the Just Transition Lab (JTL).
Research Areas
Economics
Research Specialisms
- Applied Economics
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Current Research
My current research projects investigate:
- Employment contracts and wellbeing
- Labour market effects of energy transition
- Educational mismatch
- Labour supply elasticities near retirement
- Union and nonunion forms of worker voice
- Skills shortages from the firm's point of view
- Labour market (earnings) discrimination
Past Research
Determinants of trade unionism
Public-private wage determination and differentials
Knowledge Exchange
Interview on Faculti, Performance-related Pay, Mental and Physiological Health found here: https://faculti.net/performance-related-pay-mental-and-physiological-health/
Podcast: Performance-related Pay: The Good, The Bad, The Stressful found here: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/engage/podcasts/explorathon-lunch-bytes-episode-2.php
School teaching resource on performance-related pay and stress: How does the type of payment you receive impact your health?
Supervision
I generally supervise PhD topics in various aspects of applied labour economics.
Funding and Grants
- 'A Just Transition for Workers and Communities in the North-East of Scotland', Uplift Foundation (please see the following website for more information: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/research/research-projects-2144.php#panel2149)
- 'Performance-Related Pay and Health: An Interdisciplinary Study', ESRC (please see the following website for more information: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/business/research/PRPH.php)
- 'Performance Pay and Stress: A Pilot Study', Scottish Economic Society
- Teaching
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Programmes
- Undergraduate, 4 year, September start
This is the undergraduate Economics degree with all the joint honors programmes that are associated with it.
- Postgraduate, 3 semester, September start
Teaching Responsibilities
For the 2025-26 first teaching session, I will be coordinating EC1006 (Economics of Business and Society) as well as helping with the teaching of BU501S: Employment Relations. In the second teaching session, I will be supervising undergraduate Economics Dissertations (EC4526) and giving a guest lecture in BU55H (Economics of Energy Transition).
- Publications
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Page 1 of 8 Results 1 to 10 of 77
Nuclear Decommissioning, Supply Chains and Skills: Achievements, Opportunities and Challenges
University of Aberdeen. 32 pagesBooks and Reports: Other ReportsPerformance-related Pay and Sorting into Stress
Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 938-953Contributions to Journals: ArticlesA place-based approach to measuring a just transition: Evidence from the north-east of Scotland
Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 127, 104236Contributions to Journals: ArticlesManaging the unwanted: an application of dispositional analysis on the Athena SWAN initiative in UK Business Schools
Gender, Work and Organization, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 1540-1555Contributions to Journals: ArticlesRegional Planning for a Just Transition - A case study for the North East of Scotland
Commissioned by Just Transition Commission. University of Aberdeen. 45 pagesBooks and Reports: Commissioned ReportsJust Transition and Nuclear Decommissioning in Dounreay: Stakeholder Perspectives
Commissioned by Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Just Transition Lab and the National Decommissioning Centre. 44 pagesBooks and Reports: Commissioned ReportsInitial report to Just Transition Commission: Just transition activities, planning, and policy landscape in Aberdeen and the North East
Commissioned by Just Transition Commission. University of Aberdeen. 18 pagesBooks and Reports: Commissioned ReportsJust Transition Policy in the Context of Nuclear Decommissioning in Dounreay
Just Transition Lab and the National Decommissioning Centre. 27 pagesBooks and Reports: Commissioned ReportsPerformance-Related Pay: The Expected and the Unexpected
Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Zimmermann, K. (ed.). Springer, 28 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersPerformance-related pay, mental and physiological health
Industrial Relations, vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 3-25Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12334
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstreams/fdcbd15b-805b-4e32-8cab-b8a55bb53956/download
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
