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CERGE-EI News at the Turn of the Year 2013

December 19, 2013

The highlights of the year 2013 by Štěpán Jurajda, Director of CERGE-EI (Download PDF).

Dear friends, colleagues and supporters,

This is again the time of the year to thank you all for your support of CERGE-EI's education mission, which now stretches into its third decade. We continue our service to the post-soviet region by providing top-notch economics education and research. Allow me to briefly highlight some of our achievements of 2013:

• This year CERGE-EI faculty and researchers published 30 articles in ISI impact-ranked journals including Journal of Economic Theory, Economic Journal, Psychological Science, or Review of Economics and Statistics. As a result, we have maintained our top position in global research rankings generated by the Social Science Research Network and Research Papers in Economics, in which CERGE-EI currently stands in the 3rd and 6th percentile, respectively.
• Students from 35 countries studied at CERGE-EI in 2013. These included 26 new students enrolled in our PhD program and 20 students in the third cohort of the Masters in Applied Economics (MAE) program coming from 11 countries as diverse as Germany, India, Nigeria, Russia or the US.
• The Teaching Fellows program, designed to boost undergraduate economics education, supported 76 fellows serving over 10,000 students at 41 different universities in 18 post-soviet countries.
• We welcomed Marek Kapička and Nikolas Mittag to the full-time faculty. Prior to joining us, Marek became an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, while Nikolas joined us after finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
• Our Distinguished Speakers Series hosted the 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics Prof. Eric Maskin (Harvard University) and speakers from eleven countries gave over forty research seminars including prominent visitors such as Marcel Fafchamps (Oxford University), Patrick Rey (Toulouse School of Economics), Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (Princeton University), or Jaume Ventura (CREI, Barcelona).
• The Graduation Gala on June 1, 2013, established a new CERGE-EI tradition. Over 160 people, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, members of our governing bodies, and CERGE-EI affiliates and supporters, gathered at the beautiful Schebek Palace to celebrate our graduates. Join us for the next Gala on Saturday, May 31, 2014!
• The first London Alumni Panel Discussion, co-organized with Schroders, on the topic “Is German Discipline Enough?” was held in November. The event hosted prestigious speakers and fifty guests consisting of CERGE-EI alumni and influential members of the London banking and finance community.
• The World Bank Development Report 2014 was presented at CERGE-EI this year and the International Monetary Fund again held its annual recruitment event at CERGE-EI seeking talented graduates.
• IDEA, our policy think-tank, published over a dozen of applied studies and macroeconomic predictions and organized major discussion panels. This helped CERGE-EI achieve over 350 media appearances including featured articles of IDEA on the front pages of top Czech dailies.
• As every year, our faculty and researchers obtained several new important research grants and our students and alumni had their work recognized in various competitions. We are proud to announce that CERGE-EI doctoral students have taken all three top prizes in this year's Young Economist of the Year competition of the Czech Economic Society. Martin Kuncl took the first place, Jakub Matějů the second and Jana Cahlíková the third. Nargiza Alimukhamedova won the University Meets Microfinance PhD Award 2013 and Peter Toth won the Olga Radzyner Award of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank.
  Three of our recent graduates were also recognized for their research: Filip Pertold was granted the 2013 NEURON Award for young researchers, Peter Ondko won a prize from the Governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, and Barbara Pertold-Gebicka was awarded the František Vencovský Prize for young economists. Finally, a team including our MAE students, Jiří Sýkora and Jakub Čermák, won one of the top business competitions for university students in the Czech Republic, the BCG Strategy Cup 2013, organized annually by the Boston Consulting Group.

With so many achievements in 2013, we look forward to 2014. I would like to wish Michal Kejak, our upcoming Director, all the best for his administrative term, thank you all for your support of CERGE-EI, and wish you a happy holiday season and a prosperous and successful New Year!

With my warmest wishes,

Štěpán Jurajda,
Director of CERGE-EI

In Prague, Czech Republic, December 18, 2013