Czech Economic Society has awarded The Young Economist of 2024 Award

Every year, The Czech Economic Society awards 'The Young Economist of the Year Award' to economists aged 30 years or younger who sign up by submitting their original research papers. The selection of laureates is governed by the regulations of the award.

The winner of the 31st year of the Czech Economic Society's Young Economist of 2024 Award is Vladimir Shchukin. The prize has been awarded for a paper, "Political Economy of Industrialization". Vladimir Shchukin studies at CERGE at Charles University in Prague and is a teaching assistant at CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of CERGE and the Economic Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In the paper that falls within the field of microeconomics and analysis of collective decision-making, Vladimir proposes a theory that explains why the landowning elite industrialized the economy in the second half of the 19th century. He argues that the landowning elite industrialized the economy to prevent the formation of a coalition between workers and capitalists against the existing political regime. The promotion of industrialization eliminated capital gains from political change and simultaneously increased expected losses from redistribution for capitalists if the political regime were to change. Ultimately, capitalists preferred to preserve the existing political regime, and the landowning elite became more entrenched in political power.  In addition, his theoretical framework reveals how landowners could guarantee future pro-industrial economic institutions without sharing political power. This theory also can be applied to developing countries and transitional economies.

The second place in the Young Economist of The Year competition has been awarded to Sona Badalyan for her paper "Firm Responses to Raising Women’s Retirement Age". Sona Badalyan studies at CERGE at Charles University in Prague. She is also a junior researcher at CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of CERGE and the Economic Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In the awarded paper, she examines the effects of increasing the retirement age for women following the shift to gender-neutral retirement policies, using a unique reform in Germany where women’s retirement ages were raised by at least 3 years. Sona finds that as older women remain in the workforce longer, firms adjust by reducing promotions and limiting external hiring, particularly affecting middle-aged employees, the closest substitutes on the career ladder. These findings can help policymakers in countries like the Czech Republic, where similar reforms are underway, understand how such policies may influence workforce dynamics and career opportunities across age groups.

The third place in the Young Economist of The Year competition goes to Gayna Baghumyan for a paper "Sexual-Orientation Discrimination and Biological Attributions: Experimental Evidence from Russia". Gayna Baghumyan studies at CERGE at Charles University in Prague. She is also a junior researcher at CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of CERGE and the Economic Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In her paper, she investigates sexual-orientation discrimination in Russia and the effects of providing information on the biological origins of homosexuality. Using an online experiment involving money allocation tasks, the results show that providing evidence supporting the biological causes of homosexuality intensified discrimination. This allows her to identify the causal impact of information on discriminatory behaviour. The paper documents the prevalence of discrimination against individuals with same-sex partners in Russia. On average, roughly 54% of participants exhibit discriminatory behaviour against profiles with same-sex partners by allocating 16 percentage points less money to them. Further, the results suggest that exposure to evidence on the biological causes of homosexuality negatively affects discriminatory behaviour. The findings suggest that such information might prime negative attitudes or increase social distance in low-tolerance environments, highlighting the complexities of combating discrimination through information provision.

The Czech Economic Society awards 'The Karel Engliš Prize' for the best paper on economic policy. 'An Honourable Recognition by the President of the CES for an Excellent Paper' may be awarded to the paper by an author under 25 years of age who has not been awarded by the Czech Economic Society in the past.

The Karel Engliš Prize dealing with economic policy has been awarded to Tereza Veselá. The author is a graduate of the Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. Currently, she is a PhD student at the same institution. In a paper titled "Disagreement about Expected Inflation and the Transmission of Monetary Policy in the Czech Republic", she explores how differences in inflation expectations affect the effectiveness of monetary policy in the Czech Republic. Tereza proves in her paper that during times when inflation expectations vary widely, central bank interest rate hikes are less effective and may even lead to increased inflation. The study also finds that central bank rate responses tend to be weaker during high disagreement periods, reflecting a more accommodative stance that may not sufficiently curb inflation. The findings highlight the importance of understanding expectation diversity when designing effective monetary policy in small open economies.

An Honourable Recognition by the President of the Czech Economic Society for an Excellent Paper for authors aged 25 years or younger has been awarded to Sofiana Sinani, a PhD student at CERGE at Charles University in Prague, for a paper titled "The Effect of Longer Maternal Care on Children’s Occupation Choices". The paper investigates the role of parents as role models shaping their children's gender norms, which in turn, impact their career aspirations. She uses a one-year extension of maternal care in the Czech Republic to investigate whether it affected their children's gender norms as captured by their field-of-study university applications. Sofiana finds that the affected boys are 20% less likely to apply to highly female programs while not observing any effect on girls. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that boys hold more traditional occupation preferences because they grew up in a more conservative environment. The paper offers the first evidence that longer maternal care does have the power to influence children’s gendered-specific occupation preferences.

The President of the Czech Economic Society (CES), Daniel Němec, has ceremoniously handed over the awards of the 31st year of the competition on 29th November 2024, during the 13th biennial conference of the Czech Economic Society, which took place at the Prague University of Economics and Business.

The Council of Scientific Societies of the Czech Republic sponsors the Young Economist competition. CES media partners are Roklen24 and Bankovnictví Magazine.

More information about the CES's awards and laureates of past years can be found on the CES website https://www.cse.cz/en/page/young-economist-of-the-year-award

 

Contact for journalists:

Daniel Němec, President of the CES, guarantor of the Young Economist of the Year Award, phone: +420 725 175 530, daniel.nemec@econ.muni.cz

 

Note for editors:

The Czech Economic Society (CES) is a civic association of professionals and supporters of the field of economics. The primary mission of the CES is to help develop and popularise the economy in the Czech Republic in a way that respects and supports opinion plurality and the independent development of economics courses. The CES is a member of the Council of Scientific Societies of the Czech Republic.


TZ_Cena_CSE_Mlady_ekonom_2024_final_ENG.docx (28.11.2024)



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