Centre for Strategic Risk and Insurance

University of Bath School of Management

Mike Adams is Professor of Strategic Risk Management and Director of the Research Centre in Strategic Risk and Insurance at the University of Bath. Formerly he held academic positions at the Universities of Swansea, Glasgow, and Massey (New Zealand), and professional accountancy positions in the private and public sectors. He has published papers in over 60 academic journals and is thrice winner of the Geneva Association/Shin Foundation Research Excellence Award. Professor Adams has also raised research funds of over £300,000 from public and private sector sources since 2008.

In 2011 Professor Adams was awarded the Kenneth J Black Jr Distinguished Service Award for services to the International Insurance Society (IIS). He is the UK Ambassador for the IIS, and member of the Worshipful Company of Insurers and the Willis Research Network. He maintains strong research ties with academic colleagues at the Centre for Risk and Insurance Studies (CRIS), University of Nottingham and the Chinese Accounting, Finance and Business Research Unit (CAFBRU), at Cardiff Business School.

Professor Adams is also an international research fellow at the Center for China Insurance and Social Security Research (CCISSR), Peking University, China, the Handelsbanken-Wallander Research Fellow at the Department of Economic History, Umeå University, Sweden, and visiting Professor at the International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany.

In addition, he has been appointed as consultant for several financial institutions both in the UK and overseas and employed as an expert witness in commerical insurance legal cases. Professor Adams is also Associate Editor of the British Accounting Review, the flagship academic journal of the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA).

in 2017/18 Professor Mike Adams will be visiting Umeå Universtiy Sweden for six months to work on a Swedish Government funded project on the financial viability of Swedish health insurers in the first half of the twentieth century.

Ian Tonks' research focuses on pension economics; fund manager performance; directors’ trading; market microstructure; and the new issue market. He has published in leading finance and economics journals, and teaches across all areas of financial economics including asset pricing, corporate finance, market efficiency and performance measurement. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter, the London School of Economics and has held visiting positions at: Bank of England (Senior Houblon-Norman Fellow); Financial Services Authority (ESRC Business Fellowship); University of British Columbia, Canada; Solvay Business School, Brussels; City University Business School; ENPC, Paris; and LSE Summer Schools in Moscow and St Petersburg. He has acted as a consultant to a number of commercial and regulatory organisations including the London Stock Exchange, the Competition Commission, and the Financial Services Authority, and has advised the Department of Work and Pensions, Bank of England, Financial Conducts Authority, and the House of Commons Select Committee on issues in pensions. He was a member of sub-panel 19 Business and Management for REF2014, is vice-chair of the Conference of Professors of Accounting and Finance, and is a member of ESRC GAP Panel C. Ian's homepage

My research is positioned in the general area of empirical labour economics and I have also written recent articles on behavioural economics/finance. I am particularly interested in how optimism influences occupational choice, labour market performance and individual utility.

My primary field of specialisation is applied microeconometrics, which I use toward two related streams of research: Taxation (Business and International) and International Microeconomics (Foreign Direct Investment, Multinational Enterprises, and Trade). My research capitalises on my professional experience as a Chartered Accountant as well as my empirical research skills.

Recent Research Projects include: The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the effect of Double Taxation Treaties on Foreign Direct Investment; Bilateral Investment Treaties and FDI; domestic and international determinants of Corporate Tax Policy.