Dr Denis worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit in the 1980s and joined City University Business School in 1990 as a researcher in financial development, moving to the Economics Department in 1991.
He gained his PhD in 2002 with a thesis on “Collective and Individual Rationality: Episodes in the History of Economic Thought”. His research interests are in the history and philosophy of economics, and he has published on Adam Smith, Keynes, Hayek, Malthus, the methodology of the Austrian School of Economics, the concept of equilibrium and the appeal to microfoundations in neoclassical economics, and the economic calculation debate.
In 2009 he guest edited a special issue of the International Review of Economics Education on pluralism in the teaching of economics. In 2016 he edited a symposium on Microfoundations in modern macroeconomics, published in the Review of Political Economy. In 2017 he organised a history of economic thought session at the RES conference. Also in 2017, and with Dr Claudia Jefferies, he organised the 49th annual conference of The History of Economic Thought Society (THETS) at City, University of London. In January 2017 Dr Denis was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts.