On 2 February 2022, the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance held its third annual FDEF Research Awards to celebrate excellence in research. After a welcome from FDEF Dean, Prof. Katalin Ligeti, Prof. Benny Mantin, Head of the Research Committee, presented the research achievements of the Faculty in 2021. Among these highlights, the announcement of 18 projects accepted for funding with an overall expected incoming budget of over EUR 5M. 2021 has been a record year, for both number of projects submitted (44) and overall success rate (41%).
Highlighting 2021 department achievements
Each department representative from the FDEF research committee then presented a series of 2021 research highlights. For the Department of Economics and Management, Prof. Vincent Anesi focused on two main points. Firstly, the equitable balance between achievements of junior and senior researchers, and secondly, publications in the most prestigious general-interest and top-field journals in economics, including the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of Development Economics.
Prof. Roman Kräussl from the Department of Finance pointed out the high-quality research output, reflected in five publications in the top-3 journals Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics. Prof. Kräussl explained that the researchers’ focus on certain ‘hot topics’ in finance such as ESG, FinTech and Alternative Investments has led to both interest from academic publishers and the general press. Prof. Kräussl also touched on the extensive list of research co-operations, calling attention to the quality and longevity of the partnerships.
For the Department of Law, Prof. Dirk Zetzsche presented the impressive volume of publications within the department in 2021, emphasizing the robust distribution of output with 30% of the department members producing over 10 publications each. Besides volume, Prof. Zetzsche spoke about the unique challenge faced by the Department of Law as it must cater to the needs of both local and international stakeholders. Citing 2021 publications in journals of local importance such as the Annales du droit luxembourgeois as well as international reviews such as the Modern Law Review, Prof. Zetzsche concluded that the Department has risen to the challenge.
Outstanding young researchers
To conclude the ceremony, the six 2021 winners of the Research Awards were announced. Created in 2019 to motivate and inspire the younger generation of researchers, the Research Awards include two categories: “Best PhD student”, which comes with a prize of EUR 3000 and “Best Publication by an Early-Stage Researcher” which is accompanied by a prize of EUR 5000.
The winners of the ‘Best PhD student’ prize:
Silvia Perrachi from the Department of Economics and Management. With two forthcoming papers and a 2021 Pierre Werner Scholarship, Silvia is also an active Teaching Assistant. In her research, she finds ways to spatially represent the economic impacts of migration, including using data from sources such as football scores, local news media and municipal elections.
Bilal Kchouri from the Department of Finance. Student representative for doctoral candidates at the Department of Finance, Bilal has published one book chapter and two papers on topics on Islamic finance including “Tokenization of sukuk: Etherium Case Study” and “Islamic Banking and Economic Growth.”
Antonino Salmeri from the Department of Law. Antonino is a third-year PhD student, who is tacking contemporary international space law issues with his thesis “Enforcement Challenges of Space Mining as Multi-Level Regulatory System”. As co-lead of the Space Exploration Project Group at the Space Generation Advisory Council, Antonino is also involved in several outreach projects.
The winners of the “Best Publication by an Early-Stage Researcher”
Dr. Sarah Van der Auweraer is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL) within the Department of Economics and Management. Her winning paper titled “The Value of Installed Base Information for Spare Part Inventory Control” was published in the International Journal of Production Economics evaluates the inventory performance of eight methods of spare part demand forecasting and inventory control.
Prof. Julien Pénasse, Associate Professor within the Department of Finance was honoured for his paper “The missing Risk Premium in Exchange Rates” published in the Journal of Financial Economics where he presents a new way to look at and model what economists refer to as “the currency risk premium.”
Dr. Afroditi Marketou, Postdoctoral Researcher within the Department of Law, received the prize for her publication, a monograph entitled “Local Meanings of Proportionality” from Cambridge University Press. The book fills a gap in the literature by offering one of the rare empirical studies on the different meanings of proportionality as part of a global constitutional discourse.
Van der Auweraer, Antonino Salmeri, Prof. Julien Pénasse, Bilal Kchouri,
Prof. Benny Mantin.