This interview with Filip Matějka is the third in the series about new CERGE-EI faculty. Filip Matejka, together with Michal Bauer, Michal Pakos and Jakub Steiner, has accepted offer to join the CERGE-EI faculty. Each of them brings a different set of attributes to his new position and has pursued a different path toward an academic career.
Continue reading New Faculty: Who are they? Meet Filip Matejka
It’s amazing to realize all the changes that I went through over the last six years at CERGE-EI. Orange color is no longer dominant in my wardrobe, even though I still have the short orange skirt I was wearing in the preparatory semester of summer 2005. But this series is not about such changes. Its main purpose is to share the practical information about life at CERGE-EI and in Prague that I have accumulated over these years.
My first post is about the preparatory semester.
Continue reading First Summer in Prague, or How to Survive at CERGE-EI
With no doubts, the environment is a very important element of our life. Culture we grow in shapes us as personalities. People we interact with may cardinally change our vision of the world. It would not be a surprise for you to learn that even the difference in climates can partially explain why Italians are so different from Swedes. But does the spirit of the building we work in matter? Let’s hope it does as the CERGE-EI building is associated with Angels.
Continue reading Under Angel’s Protection: Welcome to CERGE-EI Building
This interview with Michal Bauer is the second in the series about new CERGE-EI faculty. Each of them brings a different set of attributes to his new position and has pursued a different path toward an academic career. Michal has been recently awarded the Otto Wichterle Award for being an exceptionally outstanding and promising young scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and for his remarkable contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge in a given area of science. His article with Julia Julie Chytilová and Jonathan Morduch on “Behavioral Foundations of Microcredit: Experimental and Survey Evidence from Rural India” is being published in the American Economic Review.
Continue reading New Faculty: Who are they? Meet Michal Bauer
Over recent decades the phenomenon of return migration has been a topic of intense discussion among academics and policy makers. Return migration is viewed as a potential development channel for the least developed countries and represents an opportunity to reverse brain drain into the brain gain. During the last two years, interest in this topic has taken Renata Invanova, a 5th year PhD student at CERGE-EI as far as India and the US, pursuing the theoretical and empirical aspects of return migration that form the basis of her dissertation.
“India astonishes you with the mixture of sounds, smells, and scenery from the moment you step off the plane on kilometers of carpets that cover the entire Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. It astonishes you by the dramatic inequality, an overwhelming poverty in the midst of which you never see a gloomy face, but only smiles. By its desire to outpace China in population by the year 2014. By the fact that everyone speaks English, which makes the country so attractive for foreign professionals and tourists. By the power of the caste system, which still permeates life and determines, for instance, admission quotas to high schools and universities, as well as possibilities for marriage. And by rush hour traffic at 10pm when the streets are packed with BPO (business process outsourcing) employees rushing to be at their jobs by the time America and Europe wake up,” says Renata. “It was the adventure of a lifetime.”
Continue reading Building the future by going back: research on return migration in India
Dear sports fans, we’d like to inform you about different locations in Prague where you can go for running, cycling, walking and in-line skating. Prague parks and forests are great places to relax after hard work at CERGE-EI. Many of you have own sports experience in Prague to share, and we would be happy if you would do so. We have also prepared an interactive map with directions to mentioned sport venues. In our next blog post, we will expand the list with sports venues outside of Prague. So stay tuned!
Continue reading In-line Skating, Running and Cycling in Prague
Michal Bauer, Filip Matejka, Michal Pakos and Jakub Steiner have all recently accepted offers to join the CERGE-EI faculty. Each is outstanding in unique ways. Each brings a different set of attributes to his new positions and has pursued a different path toward an academic career. To introduce our new professors, we are interviewing them over the next several weeks to explore the most interesting aspects of their research, teaching and work experience.
Continue reading New Faculty: Who are they? Meet Jakub Steiner
Would you like to achieve greater success in your career? There is no universal recipe how to do so, but here I take the opportunity to present the story of one of our professors, who has recently become a Member of the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank. He has been Citigroup Endowment Associate Professor at CERGE-EI receiving tenure in 2004, and also served as a Director of CERGE-EI. He is the author of 20 articles, 25 books and chapters in books, 30 working and discussion papers and many publications in popular press. He is also the holder of a significant number of grants and tenders. Do you know who is he? Professor Lubomir (Mirek) Lizal. Being impressed by his spectacular career progress, I decided to investigate how Lubomir achieved his success.
Continue reading The Path To Success
Sport is an excellent way to increase your effectiveness at CERGE-EI. Do not trust me? Run your own experiment 😉 With the guidelines prepared for you, experimenting will be easy. This series of blog posts informs you about the possibilities to relax your mind that Czech Republic offers. The whole story is divided into three big pieces: Summer sports in Prague, Summer sports outside Prague, and Winter sports. Remember that CERGE-EI wants to keep you fit not only intellectually but also physically, and reimburses up to 300 CZK per semester for your sport activities.
Continue reading Life Outside CERGE-EI: Summer Team Sports
I wonder how you would answer this question. As for me, there is only one correct answer. Benjamin Franklin once said, “When in doubt, don’t.” I would rephrase his wise words in the following way, “If you have any doubts about whether to go on mobility, don’t. Just go!” By sharing my mobility experience with you, I want to explain why I think so.
Continue reading CERGE-EI Mobility: To Go, or Not To Go?
