Rate My Professor Andrew Wait

Andrew Wait serves as a Professor in the School of Economics within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. He obtained his PhD from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Adelaide. Over the course of his career, Professor Wait has taken on key administrative and leadership roles at the university. Since 2022, he has been the Deputy Head of School (Education). He also acted as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from January to June 2022. Earlier roles include service within the School of Economics from 2014 to 2016. Additionally, he is the Principal Contact for the Organizational Economics Proceedings, an open journal hosted by the University of Sydney library, and has hosted annual workshops on organizational economics.

Professor Wait's research specializations are organizational economics and industrial organization. His key publications include "Instructions and Incentives in Organizations" with Kieron J. Meagher and Suraj Prasad (Management Science, 2024); "You, Me, or We? Coproductive Principal-Agent Dynamics" with Guillaume Roels, Vladimir Smirnov, and Ilia Tsetlin (Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2026); "Optimal skill diversity in teams" (Economic Theory, 2025); "Holdup and Innovation" (Journal of Economics, 2005); "Communication Breakdown: Consultation or Delegation from the Principal to the Agent" (Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2010); "Search without observability" (University of Sydney School of Economics Working Paper, 2019); and "Ownership, access and sequential investment" (University of Sydney School of Economics Working Paper, 2011). He has delivered public lectures, such as one on unintended consequences of education reforms in 2025, and contributed to the IZA World of Labor project.