News 2020-2021

Congratulations to Jack Shannon (PhD Economics student and Teaching Fellow) who has been Highly Commended in the LSESU Teaching Awards 2021 for 'Exceptional Teaching in an Unprecedented Year'.

Jack shared these words about the award:

'I am honoured to be recognized in this way. I have benefited tremendously from teaching on well-structured courses, for which I am grateful to my course lecturers. I must also thank my students! The past year has made it clear to me in a particularly pointed way that the classroom is a partnership; any effort I put into teaching would not matter if it were not met with equal effort and enthusiasm by (often online) students. Thank you for being exceptional students in an unprecedented year!'

May 2021

Congratulations to Xavier Jaravel who has been awarded the 'Prix du meilleur jeune économiste de France 2021' (The Best Young French Economist Award 2021).

This annual Le Monde and Le Cercle des économistes award is given to a French economist under the age of 40. It's a wonderful and well-deserved acknowledgement of Xavier's many outstanding academic contributions.

Xavier follows in the footsteps of Camille Landais, who won the award in 2016.

Find out more | Read Xavier’s interview about the award (subscription needed)

May 2021

Many congratulations to Eddy Zou (BSc Economics), Brooklyn Han (BSc EME), Stefanus Phan (BSc EME) and Callum Renton (BSc EME), who have been awarded first place in the challenging international ‘Econometrics Game’ hosted by the University of Chicago’s Oeconomica Society. The team won the competition with their paper ‘Covid and the City: Intra-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19’. 

The Econometrics Game challenges teams of one to four students from top universities to devise and answer a question of economic importance from a dataset in 13 hours. Each team must then write a comprehensive research paper.

The teams judged to have the best papers are selected to present their findings in front of a panel of judges. This year’s judges were 2013 Nobel Laureate Professor Lars Peter Hansen, Professor Stéphane Bonhomme and Professor Robert Shimer.

View the team's presentation here and read more about their experience of the competition here.

May 2021

Congratulations to Professor Nava Ashraf and Professor Oriana Bandiera who, together with Edward Davenport and Scott S Lee, received the 29th Arrow Award for the best paper in health economics.

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Edward Davenport, and Scott S. Lee, 2020. "Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services" American Economic Review, 110(5): 1355-1394.

The Committee for the Arrow Award of the International Health Economics Association is proud to acknowledge the authors of this innovative and informative paper, which investigates whether career benefits for health workers attract talent at the expense of prosocial motivation in Zambia.

Read more on the iHEA and STICERD websites.

May 2021

In March 2020, Patrick Savage (BSc Economics) was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin Lymphoma. Now in remission after receiving chemotherapy at the Christie Hospital, Patrick will embark on a 240-mile walk from LSE to the Christie Hospital in Manchester with his friends Phil Saunes (Economic History), Alex Smith (Law) and Jorge Stevenson (Statistics) to raise money for Cancer Research UK and The Christie Charity. Between 22 June and 29 June, the team will cover 30 to 35 miles a day on foot.

You can read more about Patrick's story here. Please spread the news, click here to learn about PaTrek 2021 and donate! Thank you!

May 2021

Camille Landais has been awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for the project ‘GENEQUALITY’. The project will run for 5 years (2021-2026) and aims to understand the root causes of the strong specialization in gender roles at the arrival of children, how this affects gender inequality, and what can/should be done about it. 

Speaking to Professor Landais about the news, he said: “I am just absolutely elated. One of the exciting dimensions of the project will be its use of new techniques from the natural language processing literature to offer new measures of gender norms, and uncover the way they are formed and affected by policies.” 

Camille Landais is Professor of Economics at LSE.

April 2021

Daniel Sturm has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for the project “Quantitative Models of Cities”. The project, which will run from 2021-2026, builds on research by Daniel Sturm and his co-authors to develop economic models of how firms and residents compete over limited space in cities and how this competition shapes the productivity and residential amenities of city neighbourhoods and the flow of commuters.

The ERC grant will enable Daniel Sturm and his co-authors to combine this modelling approach with detailed data for cities to address key questions of urban policy. These include how new transport infrastructure affects employment patterns and city productivity, the costs and benefits of restrictions on building heights, and the optimal allocation of space to different land uses in cities.

Professor Sturm said: “The majority of the world’s population already lives in cities and this share is increasing rapidly throughout the developing world. This makes it imperative to improve our understanding of the agglomeration forces that pull people into cities.

Understanding how cities work and how they are affected by urban policy choices has been made even more urgent by the Covid-19 pandemic. The very generous funding from the ERC will enable us to bring our understanding of the forces that shape cities to an exciting new level.”

Daniel Sturm is Professor of Economics at LSE and director of the Urban Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance.

Read more.

April 2021

Congratulations to Professors John Moore and Silvana Tenreyro on receiving the Banque de France & Toulouse School of Economics Prizes in Monetary Economics and Finance. John Moore was awarded the Senior Prize, and Silvana Tenreyro was awarded the Junior Prize Europe.

Awarded every two years, these prizes recognize researchers ‘who have developed fundamental concepts in monetary economics and finance.’ Their aim is to encourage research that contributes to a better definition and implementation of policies conducted by central banks.

Find out more.

April 2021

Congratulations to Professors Ricardo Reis and Silvana Tenreyro who have been awarded the 2021 Yrjö Jahnsson Award.

The Finnish Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation established this biennial award in 1993, for a European economist no older than 45 years old, who has made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to economics in Europe. The European Economic Association (EEA) cooperates in the selection of the award winners.

Ricardo and Silvana were selected for their important contributions to macroeconomics: 'This includes work on monetary economics, on inequality and macroeconomic outcomes, on fiscal policy and automatic stabilizers, and currency unions. Their work has had deep impact on macroeconomics and they have each individually also made important contributions to other fields' (EEA). 

Ricardo Reis is A.W. Phillips Professor of Economics at LSE. 

Silvana Tenreyro is Professor of Economics at LSE, and External MPC member, Bank of England.

Read more.

March 2021

It's with great sadness that we have learned about the death of Lucien Foldes. A Vienna native, he came to LSE as a student, received both his undergraduate and Masters degrees from the School, before joining the academic staff. He was a member of the Department from 1951 until his retirement in 1996. He was also a member of the Financial Markets Group and the Systemic Risk Centre. Lucien started his career by writing on both applied and theoretical topics in business economics, public enterprise, and the economics of industry. Around 1970, going with the trend of the time in the profession, he taught himself more advanced mathematics and probability theory and became a mathematical economist, studying decision making under uncertainty and investment theory. Find out more about Lucien's research.

Lucien passed away in February 2021.

March 2021

Congratulations to John Moore and Nobu Kiyotaki for winning this year’s BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award.

The award, shared with Ben Bernanke and Mark Gertler, honours their contribution to understanding how financial market imperfections affect macroeconomic fluctuations. John and Nobu’s work in this area was carried out when both were in the Department and highlights the continued contribution of Department members to the most important intellectual debates in our profession. It is a most well-deserved recognition. They join our colleague Philippe Aghion, who was one of last year’s winners of this prestigious award.

March 2021

We're saddened to hear of the passing of Maureen Colquhoun, the UK's first openly lesbian MP, and LSE Department of Economics alumna.

Maureen earned her degree in Economics from LSE in the mid-late 1940s and was elected to the House of Commons in 1974, where she served as a Labour MP (Northampton North) until 1979. From 1982-1990, Maureen served as an elected representative to Hackney London Borough Council.

As the first openly gay woman to serve as an MP, Maureen stood up for gender balance and equal representation of women in government positions, even if it meant standing alone. During her time in Parliament, Colquhoun campaigned to promote women’s rights and representation across public life.

Read more about the courageous life and work of Maureen Colquhoun in this LSE History Blog.

February 2021

Today, Google is honouring Sir W Arthur Lewis with a Doodle, 41 years on from the day he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics.  

Sir Arthur Lewis, a St Lucian economist, academic and policymaker was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979 (jointly) for pioneering research into economic development with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries. His research prompted new ways of thinking about issues of poverty and underdevelopment. 

Sir Arthur Lewis was a student at LSE from 1934 to 1937, and a member of staff in the Department of Economics from 1938 to 1948. He was LSE’s first Black academic and the UK’s first Black professor. Find out more about Sir Arthur Lewis’ legacy and impact, both at LSE and around the world, in this video.

The LSE Department of Economics has a Sir W Arthur Lewis professorship in economics and the current holder, Tim Besley, has welcomed this recognition of Arthur Lewis by Google: 

“The LSE Economics Department are proud of our association with such an important figure and are delighted to see Google recognizing his achievements. He is an important role model who all young economists can look up to but he is especially relevant to those who are striving to overcome adversity and the legacy of discrimination.”

December 2020

Basil Yamey spent almost his entire career at LSE. The native of South Africa joined the Department of Economics in 1947, where he stayed until his retirement in 1984, with the exception of a one year spell at McGill University. He was a prolific academic, an effective administrator, and a kind friend to many. His academic work spans topics from industrial economics, monopoly and competition, and developing countries, to futures trading and the history of accounting. He was editor of the LSE journal Economica, convenor of the Department of Economics and Vice Chair of the Appointments Committee in the School. He had a fondness for Italy and for the arts. Gentle and welcoming, he is remembered warmly by many colleagues, friends and students.

Basil passed away in November 2020. The Economics Community at LSE shares the sadness with his family and many friends. You can read more about Basil here.

Read Basil Yamey's obituary on LSE's condolences page.

November 2020

The Department congratulates Richard Layard for receiving the 2020 Celebrating Impact Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the ESRC. Richard Layard is Emeritus Professor of Economics and has spent virtually his entire career at LSE.  He founded and directed the Centre for Labour Economics and later the Centre for Economic Performance, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and where Richard still directs the Wellbeing Programme. His research spanning areas from the economics of education, unemployment, and wellbeing and mental health has always had an important policy dimension, so that this prize is most fitting.  For more information, see Richard Layard presented a lifetime achievement award from the ESRC.

Watch Professor Lord Richard Layard discuss his research in this ESRC video.

November 2020

In celebration of the School's 125th anniversary, one of the School's oldest alumni, Diana Self, who took our BSc Economics, shares her memories of LSE during and just after World War II.

Read more on the LSE125 Anniversary Blog.

November 2020

We are delighted to congratulate our students who have won the LSE100 Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. This award is given to students who receive marks of Distinction in all four assessments on LSE100 and is a reflection of exemplary work across these demanding assignments. This year’s winners are in the top 6% of students in the entire undergraduate cohort that completed the LSE100 course in 2019.

Jash Bherwani
Hilary Cheung
Jacob Dean
Sharmishtha Desai
Shreyas Guntur
Anastasia Hariyanto
Wye Yew Ho
Anders Johansson
Tammy Fei Ning Kho
Eunchae Lee
Tanmay Mahesh
Joshua Michalowski
Samantha Ong Pay Min
Deyan Pehlivanov
Nicolas Rotzler
Anish Samarth
Guang Maik Tan
Harish Vatsen

November 2020

2019/20 Department prize and awards winners announced

Every year, the Department of Economics awards several monetary prizes for students who have performed exceptionally well in their modules and examinations. The prizes are awarded to both continuing students and finalists. We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to all students who were awarded departmental prizes and awards for the previous academic year. Click here to see a full list of award winners for 2019/20