ZEW Presents Heinz König Young Scholar Award Endowed With Prize Money of Euro 5,000 in Mannheim
ZEW Summer Workshop
The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim awarded the Heinz König Young Scholar Award for 2011. This year, the award goes to Anna Watson from the University of Cambridge for her international model of economic activity, which explains the strong volatility of international trade as could be observed, for example, during the recent economic crisis.
The annual ZEW award comes with prize money of Euro 5,000 and additionally includes the offer to conduct research at ZEW for a couple of months. This year, the consulting company MLP AG sponsored the award.
In her international model of economic activity, Anna Watson takes into consideration obstacles to the financing of companies resulting from asymmetric information between companies and banks. These obstacles, which affect export companies more strongly because their financial requirements are higher, enhance the effect of real shocks and financial market shocks on international trade. In Watson’s economic model, this results in significant fluctuations in international trade as could be observed during the recent economic crisis. Thus, her model is an important contribution to the scientific debate about the reasons for the sharp fall in international trade in the recent past.
The Heinz König Young Scholar Award is named after the ZEW founding director, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz König. The prize awards excellent empirical papers by young researchers. In accordance with Heinz König’s original intentions, ZEW does not want to add another prize to the wide range of awards for established researchers but prefers to sponsor young economists.
The Heinz König Young Scholar Award was awarded at the end of the 13th ZEW Summer Workshop on the topic of "International Business Cycles", which was funded by the auditing company Ernst & Young this year. The ZEW Summer Workshop aims at promoting research activities of young economists. Young researchers have to submit papers about their research. All submitted papers are thoroughly checked and the best are chosen. This year, 12 young researchers from South America, North America, Europe and Asia were invited to ZEW, Mannheim, where they were able to discuss their work with other young researchers and renowned economists. This year ZEW welcomed Prof. Michael B. Devereux, PhD, from the University of British Columbia and Prof. Fabio Ghironi, PhD, from Boston College.
For further information please contact
Dr. Marcus Kappler, Phone +49 621/1235-157, E-mail kappler@zew.de