Maria Cotofan

Maria Cotofan is a Lecturer in Economics and Policy at the Department of Political Economy within the School of Politics and Economics, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King's College London. She maintains dual research affiliations as a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance (LSE) and the Wellbeing Research Centre (Oxford University), following her prior role as a Research Officer at the Centre for Economic Performance (LSE).

Education:

• PhD from Erasmus University

Research Interests:

• Labour economics
• Behavioural economics
• Experimental economics
• Policy evaluation
• Inequality
• Wellbeing
• Immigration socio-political consequences

Her work examines deprivation effects, labour market functionality, and how early economic experiences shape lifelong behaviour, preferences, and beliefs through non-pecuniary incentives and policy interventions.

Recent publications (2021-2024) reveal concentrated investigation into wellbeing-inequality-labour market intersections, featuring spatial happiness analysis, job quality-wage distributions, economic hardship impacts on compassion/immigration attitudes, and macroeconomic condition effects on career trajectories using experimental methodologies.

Advising and Research Support:

• Accepts PhD supervision in applied microeconomics, labour economics, and behavioural economics
• Specializes in non-pecuniary incentives, early-life experience impacts, and cross-sector policy evaluation
• Research sustained through institutional affiliations with CEP and Wellbeing Research Centre

Research Groups:

• Quantitative Political Economy Research Group: Integrates economics/political science via advanced quantitative methods
• Centre for British Democracy: Analyzes UK governance through historical, theoretical, and constitutional lenses