The Czech Economic Society awarded the Young Economist of the Year 2025 prize

On Thursday, 27 November 2025, the General Assembly of the Czech Economic Society took place, during which the awards for Young Economist of the Year for economists under 30, the Karel Engliš Prize, and the President’s Commendation of the CES for authors under 25 were also presented. We are pleased that many of these awards were received by students or alumni of our Institute. 

The winner of the 32nd year of the Czech Economic Society's Young Economist of 2025 Award is Marek Chadim. The prize has been awarded for the paper "Markups and Public Procurement: Evidence from Czech Construction Tenders". Marek Chadim, a graduate of the IES bachelor’s programme, is currently a predoctoral fellow at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale University. In his paper, Marek examines whether and how participation in public procurement influences the pricing strategies of construction firms in the Czech Republic. His analysis suggests that firms taking part in public tenders may, on average, charge higher markups than companies operating solely in the private market. This effect appears to have weakened in recent years, which may be related to reforms aimed at increasing transparency and efficiency in public procurement. The study thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the potential impacts of government contracts on competition and efficiency in the construction sector, and may offer valuable insights for economic policy.

The second place in the Young Economist of The Year competition has been awarded to Maksim Smirnov for his paper "Treatment Effects Identification and Testing via Reduced Form Projections".  Maksim Smirnov, a graduate of the IES master’s programme, is currently studying at CERGE, Charles University in Prague. In his awarded paper,which falls within the field of econometrics, Maksim investigates a nonparametric instrumental variable (IV) model with a binary treatment and develops new methods for testing heterogeneity in the treatment effect. In particular, he proposes tests for constant marginal treatment effects (MTE) and monotone decreasing MTE curves. The analysis builds on a novel identification result showing that the average second derivative of a regression function can be recovered via a quadratic projection. The tests I construct are simple, easy to implement, and have direct implications for policy evaluation and welfare maximization. Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical application demonstrate the tests' finite-sample performance and practical relevance.

The third place in the Young Economist of The Year competition goes to Margarita Pavlova for a paper "Graduates in a Cycle: the Effect of Business Cycle Trajectories on Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates". Margarita Pavlova is currently studying at CERGE, Charles University in Prague.  In her paper, Margarita re-examines how the timing of college graduation and entrance within the business cycle affects long-term earnings. 

The Czech Economic Society also awards the Karel Engliš Prize for the best paper dealing with economic policy. An author under 25 years of age who has not been previously awarded by the Society may also receive an honorary commendation.

The Karel Engliš Prize, which focuses on papers dealing with economic policy, has been awarded to Tomáš Fencl. The author is a graduate of the Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. Currently, he is a PhD student at the same institution. In a paper titled "Household Heterogeneity and Monetary Policy Transmission in the Czech Economy", Tomáš examines the transmission of monetary policy in the Czech economy through the lens of household heterogeneity. To quantify the impact of changes in interest rates on household consumption, he employs an analytical decomposition based on a New Keynesian heterogeneous-agent model, which combines microdata with aggregate responses to a monetary policy shock. As a key source of heterogeneity, he identifies a significant share of households living without financial reserves. He finds that incorporating heterogeneity triples the simulated consumption response compared with a representative-agent model. His study is the first to apply this type of decomposition to Czech data, and the results highlight the importance of household-level frictions for macroeconomic modelling and policy design.

An Honourable Recognition by the President of the Czech Economic Society for an Excellent Paper for authors aged 25 years or younger has been awarded to Kateřina Ledvinová, a student at the Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, for a paper titled "The price of motherhood: A meta-analysis of the motherhood wage penalty". In her paper, Kateřina examines the so-called “motherhood wage penalty,” that is, the wage decline experienced by mothers compared to childless women, and investigates whether the findings of existing studies are affected by publication bias. An analysis of 146 estimates from 32 studies shows that published research systematically overstates the size of the motherhood wage loss, particularly in less precise estimates with larger standard errors. The results help to better distinguish genuine pay differences from selective reporting and can inform policies aimed at equal opportunities and fair compensation for women in the labour market.

Congratulations to all the authors of the award-winning papers!

Photo: CES