Eesti Pank research awards go to our students Mathias Juust and Danyl Denysenko

The research awards of the central bank were given this year to three pieces of research into the behaviour of Estonian exporters, the mismatch between the skills of workers and the needs of employers in the Estonian labour market, and the connection between economic activity and corruption in former Soviet states. The awards will be handed out at the museum of the central bank on 4 November.

The winner of the Eesti Pank research award in the category of doctoral work was Mathias Juust of the University of Tartu for the article "Trade effects of a negative export shock on direct exports and wholesalers". The research considered how the broad reduction in demand for exports in 2014 affected the behaviour of exporters working from Estonia to Russia. The annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 was followed by sanctions from Western countries and counter-sanctions from Russia. Mathias thanks his supervisors Professor of Applied Economics Priit Vahter and Professor of International Business Urmas Varblane.

One of the Eesti Pank research award in the category of master’s-level work went to Danyl Denysenko. The master’s thesis Corruption and economic growth: new evidence from satellite data by Danyl Denysenko of the University of Tartu researched the links between corruption and economic activity in former member states of the Soviet Union. The work was supervised by UT Research Fellow in Economic Modelling Gaygysyz Ashyrov.

Read more here.

The Eesti Pank research award in memory of Urmas Sepp is being granted for the 19th time in 2021. The research competition is intended to bring attention to outstanding research work, encourage scientific work in economics, and to promote studies that can lead to academic degrees. Since 2011 the award has been granted in two categories, one for research leading to a PhD thesis or done as part of doctoral studies, and the other for research leading to a master’s dissertation or done as part of a master’s course.

Urmas Sepp (1956–2002) was the head of the Eesti Pank macroeconomics department, later the economic research department, from 1993.