One of the joys of traveling the world is experiencing the variety of unique foods and flavors that are distinct to each country. On Thursday, CERGE-EI students brought all these foods together. The annual International Food Party at CERGE-EI is a chance for students (and faculty) to prepare a sampling of the distinct cuisine of their home country. With a diverse student body from all over Europe, as well as Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Africa, the ‘menu’ was absolutely superb. This year 23 countries were represented!

CERGE-EI’s palace rooms were brimming with students and faculty, all enjoying the food, drinks and sweets: bryndzové halušky (potato gnochi with sheep cheese) from Slovakia, nalusnuku (pancakes with meat and cheese) from Ukraine, khachapuri (cheese filled bread) from Georgia, nakladany hermelin (pickeled cheese) from Czech Republic, krompiraca (potatos and sausage dish) from Serbia, just to name a few. Moldovan wine, Armenian brandy, and Czech beer helped wash it all down.

The event not only provided a great opportunity for students to showcase the cuisine of their country, it also brought the entire CERGE-EI community together for one great party!

Have a look at the photo album on the CERGE-EI Facebook Page highlighting just a few of the offerings from the event. Cheers to everyone who prepared this amazing sampling of food !

When Edward Snowden blew the whistle on what he deemed as unconstitutional overreach of US government spying, he set off an international controversy with far-reaching implications.

Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), embodies the perfect intersection of research areas pursued by Professor Allison Stanger. Professor Stanger, who stayed at CERGE-EI on a research leave for much of 2013, is particularly interested in two areas of research: whistleblowing in America, and the contracting of government services to private companies.

In June, with Snowden’s whistleblowing disclosures creating waves across the world, CERGE-EI sat down with Professor Stanger for an exclusive video interview. In a discussion with PhD Student Liyou G. Borga, she touches topics ranging from Snowden to US-China relations, and shares many interesting insights and perspectives.

This interview is one of the most interesting yet as part of the CERGE-EI interview series. Don’t miss it!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qXaUoTxp98

Allison Stanger is the Russell Leng Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College. A PhD in Political Science from Harvard University, Professor Stanger has published books on international affairs such as One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy and Irreconcilable Differences? Explaining Czechoslovakia’s Dissolution. She is currently working on a new work, ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Leaks: The Story of Whistleblowing in America’. 

Professor Stanger has made media appearances and op-ed contributions in major outlets, including the an interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart. 

The research and teaching environment at CERGE-EI will get a boost this fall with the arrival of two new faculty members: Marek Kapička (PhD, University of Chicago) and Nikolas Mittag (PhD, University of Chicago). Dr. Mittag is an Assistant Professor, and Dr. Kapička arrives as Associate Professor with tenure, returning to Prague after 10 years on the faculty at the University of California Santa Barbara. He also assumes the position of Deputy Director of Research. CERGE-EI is delighted to welcome these new talented scholars to our academic community.

Learn more about our new faculty members, including their educational background and research interests:

Marek Kapička is an Associate Professor with Tenure at CERGE-EI as of September 2013. Dr. Kapička specializes in macroeconomics, public finance, and contract theory. He is a graduate of Charles University (degree in Economics, 1998) and received his doctorate from the University of Chicago (Economics, 2003).

In 2003, Dr. Kapička won the Young Economist Award from the European Economic Association. He has published journal articles on topics such as ‘Optimal Income Taxation’, ‘Taxation Capital’, and ‘Human Capital Policies’. His work can be found in journals such as Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics and American Economic Journal in Macroeconomics.

Dr. Kapicka is also a Senior Researcher at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic since July 2013. His previous posts include Associate Professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Nikolas Mittag is an Assistant Professor at CERGE-EI as of September 2013. He has been an Assistant Professor at CERGE, Charles University, since July 2013 and began as a Researcher at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic as of September 2013. He is interested in various research topics, such as applied econometrics, microeconomics, public economics, and program evaluation.

Dr. Mittag received his B.A. from the University of Bayreuth (degree in Philosophy & Economics, 2007) and his Ph.D. in Public Policy Studies from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

He was a fellow (Program on Political Institutions) at the Harris School of Public Policy in 2009 and received a dissertation fellowship from the U.S. Census Bureau, USA (2011-2013).

As summer slides into fall, new PhD and MA students eagerly prepare to start their studies at CERGE-EI. This year, we are pleased to welcome 46 new incoming students from across the world as they embark on their graduate studies here.

Some will be students for several years as they pursue their doctoral degree in economics, while the Masters of Applied Economics students will receive their degree in one year. But whether they are here for only one year or for several, CERGE-EI will be an important stop on their way to a successful future career. As students and scholars from CERGE-EI assume leadership positions, their outlook on international issues will have been shaped by CERGE-EI’s multinational environment and their periods of international study.

The new students, of which 40% are women, come from 18 different countries spanning four continents. Those countries are: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States.

If you see the new students around the CERGE-EI hallways and offices, remember to warmly greet them!

Learn more about the entire CERGE-EI’s student body here.

Good evening. My name is Dragana and I am from Serbia. I am a PhD candidate at CERGE-EI, and hopefully in June next year I will be celebrating my graduation.

I would like to briefly describe to you how studying at CERGE can change your life.

The opportunities that education at CERGE-EI offers to students are not so obvious during sleepless nights before general exams, in dorm room with cans of food and tons of coffee.

Rather, the realizations of how CERGE-EI changes your life strike unexpectedly.  In my case that was a moment when I was updating my CV.

The “Work Experience” section of my CV has two consecutive lines that some might find very confusing. The first line describes my job just after undergraduate school, before I was a student at CERGE-EI. I was working in a Serbian bank, and its offices were in the outskirts of the town Novi Sad in Serbia.  The street was so out of town that even the buildings in that street were not numbered.

Just underneath that CV entry, in the next line, I listed my following work experience. This was from the offices that were located at 1^st Avenue and 42^nd Street in NYC, at the United Nations Headquarters, where I went for internship after second year general exams.

The factor that made this possible was my decision to enroll in the PhD program at CERGE-EI.  In addition, just a few years back if someone had told me I would spend a semester at Columbia University or do research projects at Princeton, I would never have believed them.  And this is not only my case; my colleagues consistently have a chance to meet their equals at world leading universities.

At events like this Graduation Gala, students have a chance to meet with friends and supporters of CERGE-EI. You all believe that offering us a free access to world class education will make a difference. Well from where I am standing, it certainly does.

This idea stays with CERGE-EI graduates and I am convinced that in future we will do the same for new generations, here and in other parts of the world.