Erkin Bairam (1958 - 21 May 2001Knowles, S., and McCombie, J. (2002)
"Erkin Bairam: 1958-2001 His contribution to economics"
''Economics Discussion Papers'' No. 0212, University of Otago.Knowles, S., and McCombie, J. (2003), "Erkin Bairam’s Contribution to Economics", ''Ekonomia'', 6: 1-18.) was a Cypriot-born economist who taught in the Department of Economics at the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Born in Nicosia,

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

, Bairam studied at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...

in Colchester, England, where he gained a BA (Hons) in Economics in 1980. He left Essex for the

University of Hull , mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £18.8 million (2016) , budget = £190 million ...

, where he was awarded an MA in Econometrics in 1982. He then began work on his PhD thesis entitled "Returns to Scale, Technical Progress and Industrial Growth in the USSR and Eastern Europe: An Empirical Study, 1961-75", with John McCombie as his supervisor. He was awarded his doctorate in 1986 and the following year was appointed as a lecturer at the

. In 1991, after only four years and at the age of 33, he had risen to the rank of full professor. Bairam died in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

on 21 May 2001 at the age of 43. At the time of his death, he had published over 60 articles and 4 books. The Department of Economics at the University of Otago awards an annual undergraduate prize named in Bairam's honor.

Work

Bairam's two main interests were the theoretical specification and estimation of aggregate production functions and the testing of

Thirlwall's Law Thirlwall's law (named after Anthony Thirlwall) states that if long run balance of payments equilibrium on current account is a requirement, and the real exchange rate stays relatively constant, then the long run growth of a country can be approxima ...

of economic growth. He also worked in applied econometrics and econometric theory and the areas of inflation and labour economics. He was also interested in the economics of sport, especially

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

and

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

, and published some papers in this area. Bairam also worked on calculating research rankings of economics departments. He published an article on this topic in the ''

Journal of Economic Literature The ''Journal of Economic Literature'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal, published by the American Economic Association, that surveys the academic literature in economics. It was established in 1963 as the ''Journal of Economic Abstracts'',

''.

References

1958 births 2001 deaths New Zealand people of Turkish Cypriot descent Alumni of the University of Essex Alumni of the University of Hull 20th-century New Zealand economists University of Otago faculty {{economist-stub