The Eesti Pank research award of 2300 euros for doctoral studies for 2016 was won by Tarvo Vaarmets, Kristjan Liivamägi and Tõnn Talpsepp for their work on behavioural finance. The award of 1300 euros for Master’s studies went to Marianna Rõbinskaja for her research into factor modelling in forecasting Estonian gross domestic product.

The work that won the doctoral award was entitled “How Does Learning and Education Help to Overcome the Disposition Effect” and analysed how education, intelligence and certain mental abilities affect the disposition effect, or the tendency of investors to sell profitable share positions and hold unprofitable investments. Two of the authors, Kristjan Liivamägi and Tarvo Vaarmets, are studying for doctorates at Tallinn University of Technology, and the third, Tõnn Talpsepp, holds a doctorate from the same university.

The work that won the award in the Master’s category, “Short-term Forecasting of Estonian Gross Domestic Product with Factor Modelling”, researched how precisely Estonian GDP can be forecast with a factor model, which factors are important for such forecasting, and whether the use of survey data in factor modelling can improve the precision of the forecast. Marianna Rõbinskaja received her Master’s in economics from Tallinn University of Technology in summer 2016.

The Eesti Pank research award in memory of Urmas Sepp is being granted for the fourteenth time in 2016. The research competition is designed to promote research in economics, recognise outstanding research work, and enhance studies for academic degrees. Since 2011 the award has been granted in two categories, one for research leading to a PhD thesis or done as part of doctoral studies, and the other for research leading to a Master’s dissertation or done as part of a Master’s course. For more information on the research work, please contact Eesti Pank as detailed below.

Urmas Sepp (1956–2002) was the head of the Eesti Pank macroeconomics department, later the economic research department, from 1993.

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