Edna Solomon

Dr Edna Solomon BSc, MSc, PhD

Senior Lecturer in International Business Economics, Programme Leader, BSc Hons Economics & Economics with Banking

Key details

Dr Edna M Solomon

Senior Lecturer in International Business Economics, Programme Leader, BSc Hons Economics & Economics with Banking


Dr Edna Solomon joined University of Greenwich Business School in 2011. Dr Solomon obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Essex in 2010, where she also worked as a research officer and a part-time lecturer in the Department of Economics.

Dr Solomon's principal area of research is foreign direct investment and the multinational firm, firm productivity, economic growth and panel data econometrics. She is a member of the Royal Economic Society. She is currently working on an ESRC funded research project examining the effectiveness of the R&D tax credit policy on R&D expenditure in the UK – and the effect of R&D expenditure on firm productivity and employment.

Responsibilities within the university

  • Programme leader: BSc Economics and BSc Economics with Banking (from September 2015)
  • Course leader: Global Macroeconomics and Applied Econometrics
  • Course leader: Quantitative Method and Econometrics
  • Personal tutor

Awards

2011: Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia: Award of the fifth prize of Economic Research of Ensayos Revista de Economia. The paper, "An Empirical Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth" was given the award for being among the best eight papers.

Research / Scholarly interests

Edna's research examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the multinational firm on economic growth and firm level productivity. She is interested in growth economics which, in her view, is the first step to improving the wellbeing of societies. Edna is also interested in the determinants of firm productivity, being an important contributor to economic growth. Her empirical research involves the use of panel datasets – hence, she is interested in applied panel data econometric methods.

Key funded projects

ESRC project, Evaluation of R&D expenditures, firm survival, firm growth and employment: UK evidence in OECD context, with Prof Mehmet Ugur (lead researcher), Dr Eshref Trushin (Durham university) and Dr Francesco Guidi. June 2013 to December 2014.

The research aims to investigate the effectiveness of the UK R&D tax credits policy on R&D expenditures and to examine the effect of R&D expenditures on firm survival, productivity and employment. The first part of the research aims to examine whether R&D policy is of value to the taxpayer by investigating whether it has achieved its purpose of increasing R&D effort of UK firms. The second part examines whether R&D expenditure by firms affects firm survival, productivity and employment. If R&D expenditures are key determines of firm survival and growth, then a policy implication is that R&D expenditures must be stimulated.

Recent publications

Article

Ugur, Mehmet , Solomon, Edna M., Zeynalov, Ayaz (2021), Leverage, competition and financial distress hazard: implications for capital structure in the presence of agency costs. Elsevier. In: , , , . Elsevier, Economic Modelling, 108: 105740 ISSN: 0264-9993 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2021.105740).

Solomon, Edna M. and , (2020), Types of R&D investment and firm productivity: UK evidence on heterogeneity and complementarity in rates of return. Taylor & Francis. In: , , , . Taylor & Francis, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 30 (5) . pp. 536-563 ISSN: 1043-8599 (Print), 1476-8364 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10438599.2020.1846249).

Solomon, Edna Maeyen and , van Klyton, Aaron (2020), The impact of digital technology usage on economic growth in Africa. Elsevier. In: , , , . Elsevier, Utilities Policy, 67: 101104 ISSN: 0957-1787 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2020.101104).

Ugur, Mehmet , Churchill, Sefa Awaworyi, Solomon, Edna (2017), Technological innovation and employment in derived labour demand models: a hierarchical meta-regression analysis. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.. In: , , , . John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Journal of Economic Surveys, 32 (1) . pp. 50-82 ISSN: 0950-0804 (Print), 1467-6419 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12187).

Ugur, Mehmet , Trushin, Eshref, Solomon, Edna, Guidi, Francesco (2016), R&D and productivity in OECD firms and industries: a hierarchical meta-regression analysis. Elsevier B.V.. In: , , , . Elsevier B.V., Research Policy, 45 (10) . pp. 2069-2086 ISSN: 0048-7333 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2016.08.001).

Ugur, Mehmet , Trushin, Eshref, Solomon, Edna, University of Greenwich Business School , Durham University Business School (2016), A firm-level dataset for analyzing entry, exit, employment and R&D expenditures in the UK: 1997–2012. Elsevier. In: , , , . Elsevier, Data in Brief, 8 . pp. 153-157 ISSN: 2352-3409 (Print), 2352-3409 (Online) (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2016.05.028) NB Item availability restricted.

Ugur, Mehmet , Trushin, Eshref, Solomon, Edna, University of Greenwich Business School , Durham University Business School (2016), Inverted-U relationship between R&D intensity and survival: evidence on scale and complementarity effects in UK data. Elsevier. In: , , , . Elsevier, Research Policy, 45 (7) . pp. 1474-1492 ISSN: 0048-7333 (Print), (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2016.04.007).

Working paper

Ugur, Mehmet , Solomon, Edna, Zeynalov, Ayaz (2020), Leverage, Competition, and Financial Distress Hazard: Non-Monotonic Effects in the Presence of Agency Costs. EconPapers. In: , , , . EconPapers, (doi: https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/gpewpaper/28304.htm) NB Item availability restricted.