Each year, the DSEFM rewards the 10% best thesis among its graduate students.
For this 2020/2021 edition, the DSEFM is happy to announce that the best thesis award has been awarded on 12 November 2021 to Rana Cömertpay, supervised by Luisito Bertinelli, for her thesis “Essays on the Economics of Forced Displacement and Conflict”.
In a nutshell, Dr. Comertpay’s thesis has been nominated among other excellent candidates because of the following reasons:
“Dr Rana Comertpay’s thesis focuses on forced displacement in Turkey and in Sub-Saharan Africa and on conflicts in the Arab World. The empirical results unveils key facts in development economics such as the internal mobility of refugees and its drivers, the impact of refugees ethnic diversity on conflict in the host countries, and the impact of the media on political accountability in the Arab World during the Arab Spring. The thesis is innovative and of high policy relevance. All the results are based on the analysis of unique datasets with appropriate econometrics methods. The main contribution comes from assembling original databases that allow to address research questions that would otherwise remain unanswered.“
We warmly congratulate her as well as all other candidates for their excellent work during their PHD career!