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.
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Category Archives: research
Building the future by going back: research on return migration in India
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.”
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New Faculty: Who are they? Meet Jakub Steiner
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.
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The Path To Success
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.
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Why Present at Brown Bag Seminars?
The main idea of Brown Bag seminars is to have a forum where one can “informally” present new papers or articles, papers in progress, or ideas for papers and get a valuable feedback on them. Brown Bag seminars is a tradition that comes from american universities. They are organized at lunch time, and often meals are provided by organizers. Many attendees still bring their own take-away food, which is typically packed in brown paper bags. This gives the name to the event.
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A Good Research Idea: What It Is and Where to Look for It
Two years ago I was sitting in a cafeteria when a “you’ve got mail” alert arrived to my cell phone. It was a notification of acceptance for the Ph.D. program at CERGE-EI. With a beating heart I opened it… and hurray – I am going to Prague! I knew my life was going to change and become full of new challenges. It was, indeed, so and here comes another challenge: to find not only an idea, but “the idea” for further research, which I will devote the next few years of my life to. How to do this? I have decided to ask in the source. I have talked to one of our professors – Levent Celik, who has recently presented his work at a research seminar at CERGE-EI to find out what his approach is. I also used this opportunity to learn how he had benefited from studying at an American university.
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