Academic excellence and a passion for economics win PhD student Aleksa Uljarevic the Cornia Student Award

“Rigorous, yet flexible”. This is how doctoral student Aleksa Uljarevic describes her field of study, Economics. “The discipline offers highly structured frameworks and quantitative tools, yet it is far from rigid: the frameworks are versatile and can be applied across a wide range of contexts,” explains Uljarevic who studies within the University of Luxembourg’s Doctoral School of Economics, Finance and Management as part of the FNR-funded ACROSS Doctoral Training Unit. Uljarevic will defend her doctoral thesis in November 2025.

“It is precisely this flexibility that allows economists to study not only core economic actors and institutions, such as banks and firms, but also complex societal issues related to immigration, or education,” says Uljarevic, describing how the breadth of application of econometric tools initially drew her in and continues to inspire her career in Economics.  

Using econometric techniques to explore the societal impact of banning religious symbols in schools

Societal issues, specifically policies on religious symbol bans have been the focus of Uljarevic’s latest work. Together with co-author Professor Skerdilajda Zanaj, Uljarevic authored the award-winning paper “Secularism in Public Education: Evidence from the Ban on Religious Symbols in Belgian schools”.  The paper, which was presented in September during the SITES (Italian Association of Development Economists) X Annual Conference in Development Economics in Rome, explores how banning religious symbols in schools, such as the Muslim headscarf, affects the academic performance and well-being of students.

To study the phenomenon, Uljarevic looked at a 2009 policy enacted by the secular public school network in the Flemish Community of Belgium banning all visible religious symbols for students and staff. Using PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) data, which include academic performance data as well as background questionnaires on socio-demographic characteristics and well-being, researchers employed a method called difference-in-differences to compare and constrast effects on different groups.

In alignment with their theoretical models, the researchers ultimately found that while the ban on religious symbols in schools did not significantly affect academic performance in the groups studied, Muslim female students’ emotional and psychological well-being were negatively impacted, with increased reported awkwardness, loneliness and decreased sense of belonging in the years after the policy went into effect.

The paper was lauded for its policy relevance and implications by the jury and awarded with the Cornia Student Award for the best paper by a young economist. The award is given in memory of Giovanni Andrea Cornia, a distinguished professor of Development Economics and former Chief Economist at UNICEF, and Director of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.

A passion that translates into academic excellence

Uljarevic’s passion for economics shines through when she describes her favourite part of being an economist, “I value how strongly our work relies on data, which can reveal insights and patterns that would remain invisible without systematic analysis, as well as the emphasis economists place on evidence-based policy advice. But perhaps what I love most is the way economics brings clarity to situations that might seem obvious at first but, on closer inspection, prove to be counterintuitive.” Uljarevic points to her recent work as an example, “A policy which is designed to foster cultural homogeneity can produce unintended consequences and reduce integration. In our case, such a policy diminished students’ sense of belonging to the school environment.”

Through empirical research, modeling and data analysis as demonstrated in Uljarevic’s award-winning work, economists uncover and identify how public policy may cause unexpected effects. Their discoveries can inform lawmakers and shape legislation, helping to build stronger societies for future generations.