Banks, Education and Science, Financial Services, Latvia

Latvijas Banka organises the Competition already for the 15th time. Participation is open to students (both Latvian inhabitants and foreign students studying here) who at the time of the Competition are registered as students of higher education institutions accredited by the Republic of Latvia Ministry of Education and Science enrolled in Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes, as well as Latvian people studying outside Latvia at accredited foreign universities.

25 topics (a full list of topics is available at makroekonomika.lv), including the monetary policy options in a low interest rate environment, study of the process of real convergence, fiscal policy, impact of public debt and structural reforms on economic growth, population ageing and migration, assessment of the effectiveness of the use of the European Union structural funds and foreign direct investment, etc., are proposed for the Competition.

The Competition papers shall be submitted to Latvijas Banka from 15 May to 29 May 2017. The Competition papers shall be evaluated by a committee specifically set up by Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, the Governor of Latvijas Banka, while the papers winning awards will be published at makroekonomika.lv and their authors will receive money awards (incl.  EUR 2 000 to the first-prize winner).

13 papers were submitted for the Competition of Student Scientific Research papers organised for the previous academic year. The authors of the papers were 20 students from three Latvia's higher education establishments. No first prize was awarded in the Competition, but two second prizes were awarded to Ernests Bordāns and Madis Teinemaa for the paper "Baltic Tigers Facing the Middle-Income Trap?" and Olena Kuzan and Anastasiya Kazhar for the paper "Variation of monetary policy transmission over a financial cycle: analysis of the EU countries".

The Regulation for the Competition, the papers of the previous prize-winners and other materials are available in the section "Competition of Student Scientific Research Papers" at makroekonomika.lv. The video release and photographs show the process and the award ceremony of the previous year's competition.