ZEW Awards the Heinz König Young Scholar Award Endowed With a Prize Money of 5,000 Euros for the First Time

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim has awarded the Heinz König Young Scholar Award for the first time. The award comes with a prize money of 5000 Euros and additionally includes the offer to do research at the ZEW for three months. This year, the award is sponsored by the Freudenberg & Co. LP, Weinheim.

The Heinz König Young Scholar Award is named after the ZEW founding director, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz König who died in 2002. The prize awards excellent empirical papers by young economists. The ZEW does not want to add another prize to the wide range of awards for established researchers but prefers to sponsor young economists.

Wolfram Schlenker Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of California in San Diego was the first researcher to receive the award, which was presented by the president of the ZEW, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Franz. The economist received the award for his paper about climate change and its impact on agriculture with a special emphasis on the role of irrigation. In addition to the consequences of increasing temperatures Schlenker especially focused his research on an impending fall in value of irrigated agricultural areas as a result of climate change.

ZEW president Wolfgang Franz praised Schlenker's work as a substantial empirical analysis on a solid theoretical basis, undertaken in a field which has not been thoroughly studied by now. As there is still a lack of data and analysis regarding the connection between climate protection and agriculture, Schlenker's paper was, according to Franz, of particular importance. Especially the usage of micro data (in this case data of the committee on agriculture) for the analysis of macroeconomic and social issues is considered a very important contribution to further findings in the field of research, which is essential to the concept of the Heinz König Young Scholar Award. The Heinz König Young Scholar Award is awarded at the end of the annual ZEW Summer Workshop taking place in Mannheim. The Summer Workshop's aim is to qualify young economists. A wide range of papers are submitted and the best are chosen in a hard-fought selection process. About 12 to 15 young economists from Germany and abroad are invited to Mannheim. There they can discuss their papers with other young economists as well as specially invited established researchers. The best submitted paper is awarded the Heinz König Young Scholar Award.