2021 Working Paper Prizes

The winners of the two prizes in the 2021 Working Paper Competition were awarded at ECGI's Annual Members' Meeting which took place on 28 October 2021, online.

The 2021 Finance Prize of EUR 5,000, sponsored by the European Corporate Governance Research Foundation has been awarded to Professors José-Luis Peydró (Imperial College London and CEPR), Andrea Polo  (Luiss University, EIEF, CEPR and ECGI) and Enrico Sette (Bank of Italy) for their paper on: 
"Risk Mitigating versus Risk Shifting: Evidence from Banks Security Trading in Crises" (ECGI Finance Working Paper 713/2020)

The paper analyses whether banks start to gamble when they are closer to distress or become more cautious. They find that more fragile banks react to financial market stress by rebalancing their portfolio toward securities with lower yield, and bank own incentives, instead of supervision, are the main drivers. This finding is particularly important for European banking regulators who have been considering introducing limits on bank securities trading, specifically in the area of the purchases of sovereign bonds.

The 2021 The Cleary Gottlieb Law Prize Prize of EUR 5,000 has been awarded to Professors Dionysia Katelouzou (King's College London) and Mathias Siems (European University Institute and ECGI) for their paper on: 
"The Global Diffusion of Stewardship Codes" (ECGI Law Working Paper 526/2020)

The paper finds that there is both uniformity and diversity between the many stewardship codes that have been introduced globally. It notes that among the seven key stewardship principles of the UK Stewardship Code 2012, most of them have diffused widely, while the principles on escalating engagement activities and collective action are the least travelled. It concludes that while diffusion involves various actors, local contexts and complex pathways, stewardship norms and practices will continue to travel globally.