We are pleased to introduce the 2019 class of our scholarship holders. Five talented young scholars have been selected among the top-applicants for the Zurich Graduate School of Economics. They come from all over the world and will be affiliated with the UBS Center during their doctoral studies at the University of Zurich.

When asked about what inspires her as an economist, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya has a few different answers. First, it’s purely academic, she’s trying to solve some of the puzzles that she sees within the political economy. The second comes from the policy failures she sees in democracies, autocratic states and dictatorships and getting to the roots of these. And the third is bringing up a new generation of scholars and economists, watching her students grow and transition in bright young academics.

We followed up on the "Women in Economics" initiative by UBS and CEPR and organized a breakfast talk with Marianne Bertrand, Raquel Fernandez, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya for young female economists at the University of Zurich’s Graduate School of Economics.

Taxes are the price we pay for living in a safe and organized country; tax competition ensures that this price remains fair. With this statement, former Swiss Finance Minister Kaspar Villiger openend the sixth edition of our “Wirtschaftspodium” in Zurich.

A sound corporate culture drives a company’s overall performance sustainably – this is not only common sense, but also evidenced in research. Why is culture so important for economic success, and what are the characteristics of a successful corporate culture? A new paper by Ernst Fehr puts cooperation and feedback center stage.

David Hémous recently received a prestigious grant from the European Research Council, while Urša Krenk just started her doctoral studies at the Zurich Graduate School of Economics. Although they are at different stages of their academic careers, they have one thing in common: their passion for economic research.

The newly established policy brief series conveys main research insights to politicians, policy makers, and the broader public. The policy briefs are nontechnical summaries of research findings that address today’s key challenges, and they come with policy suggestions derived from the research results.

1:0, 7:2, 11:3. No – not the latest ice hockey scores, but the ratio of male to female speakers at the UBS Center’s 2018 events. 9:1 – the professors and 8:5 – the scholarship holders at the UBS Center. 18:6 – the UBS Center Advisory Board members.

Culture and economics are closely interlinked: a country’s economic success depends on the quality of its culture. This insight is not new, yet, it has long been ignored. It has returned, however, to the center of economists’ attention, as an event by the UBS Center showed in November.

Why are our financial decisions often irrational, leading to bad choices? Behavioral economist Dan Ariely answered this question in a very entertaining and thought- provoking way.

Ladina Jenal is the new Chief Operating Officer of the UBS International Center of Economics in Society. Her research interests focus on risk management, internal control and corporate governance as well as economic impacts of maternity on labour markets.

We are excited to announce the upcoming publication series titled “UBS Center Policy Briefs.” To get some insights, we sat down with editor-in-chief Florian Scheuer.

New technologies, new services, new client needs – is the financial market at a historic turning point? And if so, what are the implications for Swiss finance? At this year’s UBS Center Podium economic historians and experts from the financial sector were divided on the question about the significance of today’s changes in finance.

Does bank expansion cripple growth? How does working during pregnancy affect newborn babies? How can we reduce food waste? What are the right work incentives in disability insurance? These are only a few of the questions that our senior scholarship holders address in their research projects.

They have dedicated themselves to reduce poverty around the globe. Esther Duflo (MIT) and Abhijit V. Banerjee (MIT) visited the University of Zurich to share the lessons they learned after publishing Poor Economics.

The new UBS Center Public Paper shows that Switzerland is a center of stability – in a good as well as in a less good sense.

'How to Deal with the Globalization Backlash?' was the question for leading thinkers and academics at the UBS Center Forum for Economic Dialogue.

Ralph Ossa was appointed to the Professorship in Economics of Globalization and Emerging Markets, endowed by the UBS Center. He joined the University of Zurich at the beginning of this year. His research focuses on international trade, economic geography, and economic development.

There is a thin line between news bias, fake news, and propaganda. Just look at the current debate about manipulation of the media in the U.S. While mass media is believed to play a powerful role in democracies, the ability of the media to perform its prescribed role as the “watchdog” has been questioned.

Chipping away at the many misconceptions surrounding migration is just a first step toward finding viable solutions to this highly charged topic. This was one of the main insights of this year’s Wirtschaftspodium Schweiz.

Seventy years after Winston Churchill gave his historic address calling for a “United States of Europe” at the University of Zurich, Nobel Laureate Professor of economics Paul Krugman stood at the same podium and delivered a provocative lecture on Europe’s future.

Economic models tend to assume that people are informed about the decisions they make, so that consumers are able to make markets work to their advantage. Robert Shiller argued that this assumption is at least partially wrong, as many competitive markets by their very nature spawn deception and trickery.

Whether you call it the third or the fourth industrial revolution, we are entering an era of unprecedented economic, technological and social change. But what are the forces driving this change and will humanity benefit or suffer as a result?

Life expectancy in Western societies increases while birth rates drop. There is a fifty-percent chance that a child born today in Switzerland will live to be 100 years old. What does this mean for the economy and for society? How can the pension system be secured?

Thanks to his recent best-selling book *This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly*, Ken Rogoff is widely regarded as one of the world’s leaders on the topic. This may explain why the main auditorium of the University of Zurich was much too small for the hundreds of people who wanted to hear what the former IMF Chief Economist had to say about the world’s current debt problems.

Nobel Prize Winner Mohammed ElBaradei opened this year’s forum with a powerful and moving address. He argued the world is facing a crisis of governance and advocated for a global social contract based on inclusion and fostering solidarity.

High debt levels and violent conflicts are two of the themes that have been dominating the headlines for months. It goes without saying that both are seen as indicators of failure or decline. But as economic historian Hans-Joachim Voth shows, this does not always hold true. On the contrary, there were times when military conflict acted as an engine for development and high debt levels spurred economic growth.

On a macroeconomic level, the wealth of nations greatly depends on investment in human capital. For Switzerland with few natural resources, the many positive effects of strong human capital are particularly important. But what kind of human capital does Switzerland need?

Leading international figures from science, business, and politics discussed why large parts of the world are still waiting for a return to stable economic growth and a reduction in unemployment and debt levels six years after the outbreak of the financial crisis.

Switzerland is doing well...too well? Is the model for success in danger? Participants in the UBS Center Swiss Forum discussed the strengths and weaknesses of Switzerland as a business location.

Forum for Economic Dialogue 2012 – a successful inauguration. Leading economists took it in turn to address the critical issues confronting the international financial system today.