There will be an open seminar in the Eesti Pank museum at 13.00 on Thursday 24 November, at which Tarvo Vaarmets, Kristjan Liivamägi and Tõnn Talpsepp will present their doctoral work on behavioural finance. At the seminar, Governor of Eesti Pank Ardo Hansson will present the research awards to the winning authors of the works in the doctoral and Master’s categories.

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. The author, Marianna Rõbinskaja, received her Master’s in economics from Tallinn University of Technology in summer 2016.

The award for the doctoral work is 2300 euros, that for the Master’s work is 1300 euros.

The open seminar will be held in Estonian.

To attend the seminar, please register by 11.00 on Thursday by email to [email protected] or by telephone on +372 668 0758.

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.

For further information:
Ingrid Mitt
Public Relations Office
Tel: +372 668 0965
Email: [email protected]
Press enquiries: [email protected]