NET 2020 Results
NET 2020 Final Results
The final round of the 6th New Economic Talent competition took place online on Thursday, June 10.
The four finalists presented their papers via a video conference call to the CERGE-EI evaluation committee, consisting of Ctirad Slavík, Andreas Menzel and Mariola Pytliková, all of them Asssistant Professors at CERGE-EI. The committee offered feedback and recommendations for the students' future research.
Our thanks go to all who took part in the competition this year, and special congratulations to the finalists on their excellent work!
First place:
Georgiana Puscas (University of Warwick): The winner takes more? Assessing the role of political alignment in transfers to Romanian municipalities
Abstract: Although fiscal decentralisation aims to ensure an optimal provision of public goods, the lack of transparency about transfers allocation processes and political incentives can create opportunities for political actors to distort the redistribution mechanism. Following electoral motivations, the central government could direct more resources to local-level leaders belonging to the same political coalition while disadvantaging adversaries. This paper is the first one to explore whether the political alignment between mayors and the central government brings additional financial benefits to municipalities in Romania. Using a novel dataset over 2012-2018, I apply a regression discontinuity design to identify the effect of political alignment on several categories of transfers, exploiting the exogenous variation in the as-if random outcomes of close elections. I find that politically aligned municipalities receive per capita about 19% more equalisation transfers, 46% more subventions and 30% more transfers for roads. Transfers for decentralised costs at municipality level are found to be non-discretionary. In line with past literature, I interpret my results as suggesting that transfers may communicate the competence of mayors and may act as instruments to decrease the chances of reelection of opposition mayors. My findings contribute to a broader understanding of how political factors shape intergovernmental transfers, and underline the importance of employing formal allocation mechanisms to increase transparency and limit political interferences.
Joint second place:
Raisa Khadija Muhtar (University of St Andrews): The European Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Announcement Effect on the Exchange Rate in the Effective Lower Bound Era
Viktor Veterinarov (Lomonosov Moscow State University): Construction is Coming: City Improvement and Restaurant Industry
Third place:
Komila Zakirova (Westminster International University in Tashkent): The road back home is never long: The Refugee Return Migration
Results of the First Round
The Evaluation Committee has selected the top 9 papers, from which 4 selected finalists will present their papers remotely during the final round via a video conference call on June 10, 2020. Congratulations to all!
New Economic Talent 2020 finalists (listed in alphabetical order):
Raisa Khadija Muhtar (University of St Andrews): The European Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Announcement Effect on the Exchange Rate in the Effective Lower Bound Era
Georgiana Puscas (University of Warwick): The winner takes more? Assessing the role of political alignment in transfers to Romanian municipalities
Viktor Veterinarov (Lomonosov Moscow State University): Construction is Coming: City Improvement and Restaurant Industry
Komila Zakirova (Westminster International University in Tashkent): The road back home is never long: The Refugee Return Migration
Other Papers That Made it to Top 9 (listed in alphabetical order):
Yun Joo An (Yonsei University): The role of push and pull factors in cross-border equity and bond flows
Sofia Cuquerella (University of Warwick): Cross-border effects of European Central Bank´s negative interest rate policy: an event-study of asset price movements in emerging economies
Ekaterina Gurkova (Lomonosov Moscow State University): Higher education and intergenerational income mobility in Russia
Kenneth Chan (National University of Singapore): A Bird In Hand or Some in the Bushes: An Experimental Study on the Decoy Effect
Anna Lukianova (Lomonosov Moscow State University): Influence of Inflation on Income Inequality in Russia
