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CERGE-EI Student Wins GDN Award

January 16, 2011

Petar Stankov, Senior Assistant Professor at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria, and doctoral candidate at CERGE-EI in Prague won second prize in the Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development on January 14 at the 2010 Global Development Awards and Medals Competition for his project titled “Financial Crises and Reversals in Financial Development.”

The prize is awarded to the young economists whose outstanding new research on any one of the three competition research themes (see listing below) holds the greatest promise for improving our understanding of the relevant issue. Petar's award, which includes a cash prize of US$5000, was announced at the Global Development Network (GDN)'s annual conference, held this year in Bogota, Colombia.

The wide range of themes for this prize covered since 2000 have focused on policy-relevant multidisciplinary approaches to development. In 2010, the competition’s focus was on the key issue of development finance, a research and policy area in urgent need of a fresh approach and new ideas. Submissions were sought in three research themes:

• External Capital Flows and Financing for Development
• Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Sector Development: Another Angle to Look at the MDGs in a Post-crisis World?
• Innovative Sources of Development Finance

When the world financial crisis hit in 2007–08, policymakers around the world started calling for tougher financials regulations, looking to please their electorate and punish the financial system for inflicting the worst crisis since the Great Depression.  Two years after, many of the proposals have been adopted but still, as Jean Pisani-Ferry maintains “…financial reform remains incomplete, and its agenda is still evolving, because better-defined priorities could emerge only after a period of reflection and debate.”

Stankov's research fits into this policy debate by asking a very natural question: What kind of financial regulation policies are adopted after crises?  The answer is important because governments may help their economies step back on the growth path faster, or they may adopt a nonsensical regulatory framework in which they identify and punish scapegoats to please the constituencies.  The latter reform path would reverse the financial development and thereby jeopardize getting back to the growth path. Stankov's project brings a better understanding of how policymakers react to financial crises and what measures they adopt after these seminal events.

Amongst the largest annual international competitions supporting research on development, the Global Development Awards and Medals Competition recognizes innovative ideas in research and development and encourages multidisciplinary, policy relevant research generated by the developing world.