Field of Economics - a short presentation

Department of Economics: The department covers a large variety of disciplines, such as economics, business, organizational theory, and operations research, to mention but the most important ones. The department is responsible for educational programmes in business administration, logistics, and transport economics. In addition, there are masters and PhD level programmes in transportation and logistics.

Activity areas

Logistics: Logistic problems and decisions have become a significant issue in practical business life and research during the last decades. Business logistics deal with the coordination of information flows and value adding activities from the point of origin to the end users and is related to the supply of raw materials and components, work in process, and the production and distribution of finished goods.

The unit of analysis in logistic research will be individual business firms or organizations, business-to-business relationships (dyads), chains of business firms or networks of business actors.

In order to analyze logistic problems, a wide range of methods and sciences are used, for example IT, economical theory, economics of organizations, industrial marketing, mathematics, statistics, organizational science, and management theory.

Significant topics treated in our study programs in business logistic are purchasing and supply management, inventory and production theory, distribution management, vehicle routing, value chain analysis and quality control issues. Molde University College offers both a quantitative approach and a more qualitative, management approach to business logistics.

Umar Burki, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: TCA & Cross Cultural Buyer-Supplier Dyads: An empirical Study.

Arnt Buvik is professor in purchasing management and logistic management.

His research concerns mainly topics related to economics of organization, inter-organizational issues and in particular the analysis of purchasing strategies, governance forms and governance performance in industrial purchasing relationships.

Jøran Gården, Assistant professor of logistics (Kristiansund campus), Interested in logistics/ procurement operations and management, project management and planning, marketing (B2B).

Knut Anders Fostervold, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Hospital logistics.

Øyvind Halskau, Associate professor. Research interests: All aspects of quantitative logistics, but particularly distribution and vehicle routing problems and variation of these problems such as the Travelling Salesman Problem, pick-up and delivery problems, inventory routing problems etc. During the last years he has also become interested in inventory theory and mathematical models for this part of logistic.

Berit Irene Helgheim, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Hospital logistics.

Arild Hoff, Doctoral candidate. Research Interest: Heuristics for vehicle routing.

Lars Magnus Hvattum, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Heuristics for stochastic vehicle routing problems.

Arnt-Gunnar Lium, Doctoral candidate in quantitative logistics. Research interest: Decision-making under uncertainty, service network design, metaheuristics and scheduling. Applications: Intercity freight and passenger transportation.

Hans F. Norhaug, Associate professor of informatics. Interests: Numerical solution of optimization problems.

Johan Oppen, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Metaheuristic search for rich logistic problems. Applications in live animal transport.

Bård-Inge Pettersen, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Profit maximization in Lot-sizing under non-monopoly market assumptions.

Ole Holte Sandvik. Doctoral candidate. Research interests: Supply Chain Management, auction theory, contract theory, petroleum industry.

Bernt E. Tysseland, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: The theoretical and empirical effect of using integrated logistic support methodology on system life cycle cost.

Stein W. Wallace, Professor of quantitative logistics. Research interests: Decision-making under uncertainty, modelling, properties of discrete stochastic optimization problems, scenario generation. Applications: Supply base management, transportation of live animals to slaughterhouses.

Bjørnar Aas, Doctoral candidate. Research interest: Supply logistics for oil and gas installations at sea.

Transport Economics. This field of economics deals with a very important sector in the society. In short, Transport Economics is about how people and goods can be moved in the most efficient way, and in accordance with the needs of the market and society. Planning for an optimal capacity and quality of transport infrastructure together with correct pricing policies for infrastructure use and the use of transport services are, consequently, important policy issues. Efficient transport solutions rely heavily on infrastructure provided by public authorities. One of the main challenges is how to determine the amount of societys resources that should be spent on such infrastructure. Providing efficient transport of persons, both in urban and rural areas, is another key challenge. One then needs to study issues like efficient allocation of transport subsidies, transport policy design in urban areas, and the design of competitive tendering procedures and subsidy contracts. On a macro-level we also focus on the way the transport sector is organised, and how various stakeholders act to promote their interests. Our main focus area in freight transport is inter-modal transport solutions and how different choices of transport mode influence the competitiveness of the export industry. Evaluating the social impacts of these choices is yet another key issue.

Kai W. Bedringås, Associate professor of transportation. Research interests: Freight transport, oil and gas transport. Applications: Writing a textbook on oil and gas technology for bachelor students in petroleum logistics. An analysis of contracts in the development of the Ormen Lange gas field.

Svein Bråthen, Associate Professor of Transport Economics. Research Interests: The interplay between transport systems and economic development, the value of time, methods for economic impact assessment, industrial organisation in the transport sector. Applications: Economic impact assessment for the road and aviation sector, competitive tendering in Norwegian Road ferries, assessment of the airport structure in Norway. See www.himolde.no/~brathen for further details and publications.

Harald M. Hjelle, Associate professor of economics. Research interests: Transport Economics with focus on: Economic Impact Assessment and Charging for infrastructure use. Applications: Estimation of road user costs, Impact Assessment principles for road, rail and aviation. Teaching experience: Transport Economics, General Economics, International Shipping, Economic Impact Assessment, Environmental Economics, Regional Economics and Transport Policy.

Other parts of economics and business:

Anders Dedekam Jr, Professor in economics. Research interests: Regional economics, textbooks in microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Eddie Rekdal, Assistant Professor in Auditing. Research interests: Audit practice and theory, Norwegian audit regulation, Norwegian and international audit standard-setting.

Oddbjorn Sættem, Assistant Professor in Financial Accounting. Research interests: Financial accounting reporting and analysis, Norwegian financial accounting regulation, Norwegian and international accounting standard-setting, accounting practice and theory.