News

CERGE-EI Students Succeed in the Young Economist of the Year Competition

1 December, 2025

CERGE-EI is proud to announce the success of students Maksim Smirnov and Margarita Pavlova in this year’s Mladý ekonom (Young Economist of the Year) competition, organized annually by the Czech Economic Society. 

The award is presented to economists under the age of 30 for exceptional original research. The President of the Czech Economic Society (CES), Daniel Němec, has ceremoniously handed over the awards of the 32nd year of the competition at a General Assembly of the Czech Economic Society, which took place on November 27, 2025, at CERGE-EI.

Second place was awarded to Maksim Smirnov for his paper “Treatment Effects Identification and Testing via Reduced Form Projections.” In his awarded econometrics research, Maksim investigates a nonparametric instrumental variable model with a binary treatment and develops new methods for testing heterogeneity in treatment effects. He proposes tests for constant and monotone marginal treatment effects based on a novel identification result using quadratic projections. His methods are easy to implement and have direct implications for policy evaluation and welfare analysis, with their practical relevance confirmed through Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical application.

Third place was awarded to Margarita Pavlova for her paper “Graduates in a Cycle: The Effect of Business Cycle Trajectories on Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates.” Using U.S. CPS data from 1976 to 2024, Margarita shows that long-term wage gaps between cohorts graduating in recessions versus expansions largely stem from students who entered college during periods of high unemployment. For these “marginal” graduates, recession scars persist for over a decade, while for others they fade within three years. Her findings highlight that post-graduation labor market conditions play a crucial role in shaping long-run outcomes.

The laureate of the 32nd edition (2025) of the Czech Economic Society’s Mladý ekonom competition is Marek Chadim, who received the award for his paper “Markups and Public Procurement: Evidence from Czech Construction Tenders.” Marek Chadim is currently an undergraduate fellow at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale University.

We warmly congratulate Maksim Smirnov and Margarita Pavlova on their achievements. We wish them continued success in their future research and professional careers.