Martin Watts

Biography

Dr. Watts spent 16 years as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Monash University. In 1991 he moved to the University of Newcastle as a Senior Lecturer in Economics, and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor (2002) and then Professor (2010). He has had a long-standing commitment to research, and has published 16 book chapters and 52 refereed journal articles, of which 30 are in international refereed journals. Conference papers have been presented in countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Korea, Japan, Portugal and New Zealand. Over his career he has established a record of research in macroeconomics and labour economics, with the majority of publications in Australian journals, including the Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour and Industry, Australian Bulletin of Labour, Australian Economic Papers, Australian Journal of Social Issues and the Australian Economic Review. During the 1990s he demonstrated the capacity to place articles in respected international journals, including Demography, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Environment and Planning A , Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Review of Political Economy and Work, Employment and Society. Over this period, Dr. Watts established an international reputation for his research into the measurement of segregation and the empirical analysis of segregation trends, as is evidenced by citation rates for his papers in Demography, Work, Employment and Society and European Sociological Review, and requests to referee papers submitted to journals, including the Economic Journal and Feminist Economics, and the Eastern Economic Journal. He was invited to act as an international referee of grant applications submitted in the USA, Israel and Austria. From 2004 onwards, his interests have broadened to include spatially based research, notably commuting behaviour, the conceptualisation and measurement of local labour markets and the evolution of urban form. This has led to publications in journals including Urban Studies, Built Environment and Geographical Research. His increasing reputation in these areas has led to requests to review papers submitted to high ranking publications including Urban Studies and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. Professor Watts was a founding member of the Spatially Integrated Social Sciences ARC Research Network, and was a regular participant in their research workshops and conferences. He has been a consistent and successful applicant for University research funds. He was a successful co-Chief Investigator for ARC DPs (2000, 2008) and an ARC Linkage Grant (2004). In 2010 he was sole CI for an ARC Discovery Project application entitled 'Evolving urban structure, mode choice, travel behaviour and energy consumption: a study of the Sydney planning strategy' which secured ARC funding for three years. His program of research continues to encompass the three broad strands identified above, using both quantitative and econometric techniques. Dr. Watts has had a broad range of teaching experience at both the undergraduate and honours level, with a particular focus on labour economics and macroeconomics. His student evaluations have been sound in these challenging discipline areas. During his career, he has undertaken a number of administrative responsibilities on Faculty and Department/School Committees. From the beginning of 2002 until mid-2007, he was Head of the School of Economics, Politics and Tourism (formerly School of Policy), after being Acting Head of the Department of Economics from time to time from 1994 to 2001. He was Deputy Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) at the University of Newcastle from when the Centre commenced operation in 1998 until 2007.

Research Interest

Economic Theory , Business and Management