Professor Keith Bender

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.

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).

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?

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 Responsibilities

For the 2023-24 first teaching session, I will be coordinating EC1006 (Economics of Business and Society) and the QB5027: Employment Relations in Qatar as well as helping with the teaching of BU501S: Employment Relations. In the second teaching session, I will be supervising undergraduate Economics Dissertations (EC4526) .