As from June 2021, Kostas Mavromaras is Professor of Economics at the School of Economics and Public Policy, University of Adelaide. Prior to this appointment he was Professor of Economics and Director of the Future of Employment and Skills research centre at the University of Adelaide (2018-2021). He spent the years 2010 to 2017 as Professor of Economics and Director of the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. He was previously at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Policy Research, University of Melbourne, (2005-2009) Professorial Fellow and Head of the Labour Economics and Social Policy area. Before that he was at the universities of Aberdeen and Newcastle upon Tyne. He has a DPhil from York UK under the supervision of Mike Jones Lee and John Hey. After York he spent two years at The IAB of the German Federal Employment Office in Nuremberg as an Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellow. He is Research Fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation, the IZA and the Manchester School. He was the President of the Australian Society of Labour Economists from 2010 to 2015 and the President of the Economic Society of Australia (South Australian Branch)from 2016 to 2020.
From 2002 to 2005 he was Director of the Centre for European Labour Market Research of the University of Aberdeen, where he also worked on a research secondment within the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen Medical School.
His main research interests lie in the general areas of applied economic theory, micro-econometrics and economic policy with specific reference to labour markets, education and health.
He has advised several organisations including the Federal Employment Office, Germany, the Centre for Economic Planning, Greece, the Scottish Executive, the CEDEFOP, the OECD, the ADB, the World Bank, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines. Kostas has worked extensively with many departments of the Australian Commonwealth and States Governments, on labour, education, disability, and health issues. He was the chief investigator of two major national Australian Commonwealth Government evaluations, the Evaluation of the National Diasability Insurance Scheme (2013-208) and the Evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card (2019-2021). Kostas has served as Associate Editor of the Manchester School and of the Australian Bulletin of Labour.
His academic publications include papers in the Economic Journal, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Human Resources,Economics Letters, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, British Medical Journal, Economic Record, Health Economics, Oxford Economic Papers and Cambridge Journal of Economics.As of end 2021 he has authored 19 IZA Discussion papers and a large number of policy reports for governments, agencies and organisations.
He joined IZA as Research Fellow in October 1998.