Rate My Professor Stephen Knowles

Professor Stephen Knowles is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, Otago Business School, University of Otago. He holds a BCom (Hons) obtained in 1990 and a PhD earned in 1995, both from the University of Otago. His entire academic career has unfolded at the University of Otago, where he progressed from Lecturer (1994–1998) to Senior Lecturer (1999–2005), Associate Professor (2006–2017), and Professor since 2018. He has held key administrative roles, including Head of the Department of Economics, Director of Postgraduate Studies, and member of the University of Otago Senate.

Professor Knowles maintains two principal research interests: experimental economics and the empirical modelling of economic growth and development. For the last decade, his scholarship has concentrated on the economics of altruism and charitable giving. Employing laboratory, online, and field experiments, he analyzes why individuals donate (or refrain from donating) to charities, with particular emphasis on international development charities. Investigated topics encompass effective altruism, the influences of matches, rebates, and procrastination on charitable contributions, other-regarding preferences such as trust and public goods provision, preferences regarding foreign aid allocation, and the measurement of well-being. Earlier contributions explored the impacts of gender inequalities in education and health on economic growth, the nexus between social capital and economic performance, and the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. He teaches courses in the economics of developing countries and introductory microeconomics, and supervises research in areas like measuring economic development, well-being, and experiments on trust, altruism, and charitable giving.

Among his major publications are “Inequality and economic growth: the empirical relationship reconsidered in the light of comparable data” (Journal of Development Studies, 2005), “Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon” (Experimental Economics, 2011), “Transaction costs, the opportunity cost of time and procrastination in charitable giving” (Journal of Public Economics, 2015), “Procrastination and the non-monotonic effect of deadlines on task completion” (Economic Inquiry, 2022), and “On generosity in public good and charitable dictator games” (Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2024). His research has garnered over 3,600 citations on Google Scholar, underscoring its influence in the field. Professor Knowles is a Life Member of the New Zealand Association of Economists.