Universities compete on reputation, but there is no agreed way to measure it or assess who benefits. This project applies modern microeconomics, causal inference, discrete-choice demand estimation and linked administrative data to study university reputation in Australia. The candidate will measure reputation using behaviour, estimate its causal effects on student choices and graduate outcomes, and analyse the distributional impacts of reputational competition.
Institutional reputation is one of the most consequential and least well-measured assets in higher education. Rankings are published annually and move student enrolments, staff recruitment, philanthropic giving, and government attention – yet the underlying construct is typically proxied by the rankings themselves, which are composite indices built from inputs rather than from observed behaviour. This creates a circularity that limits what the sector can credibly say about the value of reputation and about the returns to investing in it.
The project is deliberately scoped around questions for which Australian data are already accessible, so that the candidate can produce publishable applied economics rather than a purely conceptual thesis. Indicative components include:
- Measurement. Construct behaviour-based measures of institutional reputation from revealed preference – for example, applicant preference orderings and offer-acceptance patterns in undergraduate admissions – and benchmark these against published rankings.
- Valuation. Estimate what reputation is worth, using discrete-choice demand estimation to recover students willingness to pay for institutional quality, and linked graduate-outcomes data to estimate the earnings premium attributable to institutional reputation rather than to student selection.
- Rankings as an institution. Examine how universities, students, and governments respond to ranking movements, including whether institutions reallocate effort toward ranked inputs, and what this implies for the design of ranking systems and performance-based funding.
- Distribution. Assess who gains and who loses from reputational competition – across institutions, and across students by socioeconomic background, first-in-family status, and region.
Candidate data sources include the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) collections, the Department of Education higher education statistics collections, the Universities Admissions Centre preference data, and, subject to approval, ABS-linked administrative data through the Australian Bureau of Statistics DataLab. The final scope will be developed with the successful candidate.
The project is sector-wide in orientation. It is not an internal valuation exercise for any single institution, and the supervisory team will support publication of the findings in peer-reviewed journals irrespective of what those findings show.
Supervision and research environment
The candidate will be supervised by Professor Alfredo Paloyo and Dr Oleg Yerokhin in the School of Business, both applied microeconomists working in the economics of education and labour. The successful candidate will join an active applied microeconomics group with access to computing resources, conference travel support, and a structured researcher development program through the Graduate Research School.
Faculty: Faculty of Arts, Society and Business
Study area: Accounting Finance & Economics
Student type: Domestic students, International students
Student status: Current student, Future Students
Scholarship amount
$38,420 per annum - indexed annually.
Duration
3.5 years - Full-time
Application process
Applicants should send the following to alfredo_paloyo@uow.edu.au with the subject line ‘PhD Scholarship – Economics of University Reputation’:
- Curriculum vitae.
- Academic transcripts for all tertiary study.
- A one-page cover letter setting out your motivation for doctoral research, your research interests, and the experience that prepares you for this project.
- Contact details for two referees, at least one of whom must be an academic referee.
Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview and will then be asked to submit a formal application for admission and scholarship through the UOW Graduate Research School.
Informal enquiries are welcome and are encouraged before applying.
UOW is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and welcomes applications from candidates of all backgrounds.
Eligibility requirements
Essential
- Meet UOWs minimum entry requirements for admission to a PhD.
- Domestic applicants: Bachelor Honours Class I, or a Masters by research, in economics, econometrics, or a closely related quantitative discipline.
- International applicants: as above, and normally at least one first-authored publication in a Q1 journal or equivalent discipline-appropriate output.
- Demonstrated aptitude for quantitative research, including a solid foundation in econometrics, mathematics, and statistics.
- Practical programming skills for empirical work with large datasets (for example, Stata, R, Python, or Julia).
- Meet UOWs English language requirements, where applicable.
Desirable
- Prior experience with causal inference or quasi-experimental designs.
- Prior experience handling restricted-access administrative or linked microdata.
- A demonstrated interest in contributing to higher education or public policy.
Application closing date
10 November 2026
Contact information
Professor Alfredo Paloyo, School of Business, Faculty of Arts, Society and Business