After graduating from CERGE-EI, Mária Valachyová returned to Slovakia and built a career in private banking that led her to her current role as Head of Strategy at Slovenská sporiteľňa (Erste Group). In this interview, she reflects on the key turning points that shaped her path, the real-world impact of research and strategy on households and businesses, and the innovations her team is delivering. Continue reading Meet our alumni: Coming home to build impact
Tag Archives: Economics
When delayed retirement reshapes the workplace. Talking Economics Emerging Scholars with Sona Badalyan
Most research on retirement asks a simple question: when do people choose to stop working, and why? In the newest episode of Talking Economics Emerging Scholars, CERGE-EI job market candidate Sona Badalyan takes a different angle. She looks at raised retirement age as something that also happens to firms and coworkers—a change that can ripple through promotions, hiring, and peer effects. Continue reading When delayed retirement reshapes the workplace. Talking Economics Emerging Scholars with Sona Badalyan
From Copenhagen to Chicago—A PhD Year on the Move
In our Places You’ll Go series, we follow CERGE-EI students as they take their research abroad and bring new ideas back to Prague. In this interview, a CERGE-EI PhD student Ilisa Goenka (Quantitative Macroeconomics, Household Finance, Behavioral Macroeconomics) reflects on a high-intensity year filled with study stays at the University of Copenhagen (spring) and the University of Chicago (fall), with an additional visit to Princeton University as a Stapleton Scholar. In the interview she shares what it takes to integrate fast, stay productive, and make the most of short windows in top research environments. Continue reading From Copenhagen to Chicago—A PhD Year on the Move
Boston Bound: Study Stay at MIT
In this entry of the Places You’ll Go series, we follow Maksim Smirnov, a CERGE-EI PhD student, to MIT for a spring research stay shaped by one goal: sharpening a job market paper in the right intellectual home. Drawn by MIT’s strength in instrumental variable models and an unusually welcoming econometrics community, the visit became both a research accelerant and a crash course in academic connection. Continue reading Boston Bound: Study Stay at MIT
Meet Our Alumni: Regulation, Competition, and the Digital Economy
Our Phd alumnus, Viliam Druska, is Senior Director of Regulatory Economics at Ooredoo in Doha, Qatar. After starting out in a technical field, he transitioned to economics during the region’s shift to a market economy and went on to build a career in telecommunications. In this interview, Viliam shares the key choices behind his journey, explains what regulatory economics looks like in practice, and reflects on why balancing short- and long-term incentives matters for investment. Continue reading Meet Our Alumni: Regulation, Competition, and the Digital Economy
Conclave Insider: Game Theory of Choosing a Pope
The papal conclave is often portrayed as a closed, ritualized event. But behind the secrecy lies a voting procedure with clear strategic logic. In this interview, CERGE-EI faculty Jan Zápal introduces the study Electing the pope: Elections by repeated ballots which he coauthors with Clara Ponsati. It explains how the pope is elected through repeated rounds requiring a two-thirds majority, why this system can in principle last for months or even years, and how economists model such elections to understand what kinds of winners the rules tend to produce. Along the way, they connect the conclave to other institutions that use similar repeated voting, and argue that long-standing rules can also confer legitimacy on the final choice. Continue reading Conclave Insider: Game Theory of Choosing a Pope
From Prague to Chicago to Princeton, via the New York Fed
What starts as a single email can turn into a research-shaping journey. As Gayane Baghumyan, a PhD student and aspiring experimental economist at CERGE-EI, describes in this Places You’ll Go interview, it unfolded like this: a CERGE-EI–supported research stay became six months at the University of Chicago, hosted by John List, followed by a Stapleton Award–funded visit to Princeton and a conference stop at the New York Fed. Along the way, she discovered an intense seminar culture, world-class faculty who were unexpectedly down-to-earth, and “random conversations” that sharpened her research design and broadened her view of how economics can influence the world. Continue reading From Prague to Chicago to Princeton, via the New York Fed
“A New Door Opened”: Yaroslav Korobka’s Journey Through Academic Mobility
When Yaroslav Korobka, a CERGE-EI student with a deep passion for econometrics, received the unexpected suggestion “Princeton” during his DPW defense, it opened a path he hadn’t fully imagined. His mobility stay at Princeton University became a defining academic experience—shaping his research, expanding his network, and transforming both his skills and perspective. In this interview from the series Places You’ll Go, he shares what surprised him most about the teaching environment and the lessons he brought back for future CERGE-EI students. Continue reading “A New Door Opened”: Yaroslav Korobka’s Journey Through Academic Mobility
Confidence, Curiosity, and California: Reflections on a Study Stay
From Prague to Berkeley, this interview traces the academic and personal journey of our PhD student Tereza Burýšková, who spent a study stay
at the University of California, Berkeley. Her experiences open a new interview series titled Places You’ll Go, sharing reflections on the decision-making process, cultural adjustments, and differences in academic environments. The interview aims to encourage other students to take a similar step. It offers an honest look at what it means to move beyond one’s comfort zone. Continue reading Confidence, Curiosity, and California: Reflections on a Study Stay
Who Pays for Policy? Find it out with Stephanie Ettmeier
Trained across disciplines and shaped by moments when economic policy moved from abstraction to real-world consequence, Stephanie Ettmeier, PhD, Assistant Professor at CERGE-EI, brings a distinctive perspective to contemporary macroeconomics. In this interview, she reflects on her unconventional path into the field, her motivation for joining CERGE-EI, and the questions that animate her research—from the effects of fiscal austerity to new methods for understanding how aggregate shocks are experienced across households, firms, and regions. Bridging historical insight with cutting-edge empirical tools, Ettmeier’s work highlights why looking beyond averages is essential for both economic research and policy today. Continue reading Who Pays for Policy? Find it out with Stephanie Ettmeier