CEMLA Central Bank Award


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CALL FOR PAPERS 2024

The CEMLA Central Bank Award (Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez) was established in 1970 (with its first edition in 1972) to encourage research in areas of interest for central banks. The bases for the 2024 Award Edition are presented below.

Participants

The author(s) of the paper submitted to the Award must be a natural person with the nationality of a Latin American or Caribbean country,1 Canada, Spain, or the United States of America; or a person of a different nationality, but who is working in one of CEMLA’s affiliated institutions in the above-mentioned countries, both at the time of the paper’s submission, and when the prize is awarded. Should the paper be written by two or more authors, at least one of them must meet the above-mentioned nationality criteria. No staff member from CEMLA may participate. Similarly, the author(s) of the paper submitted must be affiliated to a public, educational or multilateral institution. If the paper is written by more than one author, one of them may be affiliated to a private non-educational financial institution.


1 Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Curaçao and St. Maarten, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Eastern Caribbean States (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Granada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay.

Thematic and requirements

The topics of the papers must bear upon the functions and aspects of direct interest to regional central banks. Among other topics, papers on monetary policy, macroeconomic stability, financial stability, central bank operations, financial cooperation between Latin American and Caribbean countries, or the repercussions of international financial events on the region may be submitted.

No more than one paper per author will be accepted. If a paper is written by more than one author, each of them must approve the paper’s submission for the Award.

The submitted papers must be original and, in their final versions, written in the format of an academic article. They must not have been published either as a book or as a part of a journal or compilation (e.g., technical reports, institutional proceedings, conference proceedings), either in printed or electronic form. Works that have been circulated at meetings, seminars, conferences or on websites, in printed or electronic form, as working papers for consultation during their preparatory stages are allowed. Author(s) of papers which have been available on websites will be requested to remove them from such sites. University degree theses, as well as papers submitted to the meetings of the Central Bank Researchers Network of this Center, may also be submitted to the Award, so long as they comply with the requirements in this call.

Papers should preferably be presented in English, although papers in Spanish, French or Portuguese will be accepted. The papers should not exceed 20,000 words or 50 pages (whichever comes first), including the cover, abstract, introduction, main body, conclusions, and appendices or annexes.

No papers that have participated in previous editions of the CEMLA Central Bank Award (Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez) may be submitted. Submitted papers may not compete for other awards or be under consideration by other publications until the authors have received a written notification with the results of each evaluation round indicating that their paper is free of such an embargo.

Jury and evaluation process

The panel of judges must comprise seven Governors of the central bank Associate Members of CEMLA’s Board of Governors, or their representatives; the Director General of CEMLA, or his or her representative; two ex officio members of CEMLA; and, if necessary, up to three additional members representing other Associate or Collaborating Members, renowned researchers, or both.  In case of discrepancies in any evaluation(s), CEMLA will consult with the corresponding members of the jury and may act as the final evaluator. CEMLA will see to the administrative aspects of the contest. In case of a delay on the submission of any of the grades from the panel’s members, the final grade can be determined with at least 80% of the jury.

When remitting the papers to the members of the panel, CEMLA must suppress the names of the authors and assign a pseudonym to each submitted paper, which will be the only means of identification available to the panel in communicating the corresponding evaluations. It is the ultimate responsibility of the authors to ensure that the content of the text is anonymized.

The papers must be evaluated by objective criteria and mechanisms defined by CEMLA’s Board of Governors, in two different evaluation rounds. That said, prior to the first round, CEMLA will prescreen the papers that have a chance of being awarded. Once the first evaluation round has concluded, CEMLA will inform the authors if their papers were selected as finalists, that is, if the paper will be evaluated in the second round. The Board of Governors shall grant the Award based on the second-round results during its meeting in the second semester. CEMLA will then notify the outcome to all participants as well as to other interested parties.

Awards

The First Place Award will consist of the amount of fifteen thousand United States dollars and a diploma. The Second Place Award will consist of the amount of five thousand United States dollars and a diploma. The Third Place Award will consist of the amount of two thousand five hundred United States dollars and a diploma. Honorary Mentions can also be awarded to up to eight other papers. Honorary Mentions’ papers will be awarded a prize of one thousand United States dollars each. In case of a tie for the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, or the Honorary Mentions between two or more competing papers, the monetary prize will be divided in equal parts among the papers, and for each of them, in equal parts among the authors. The result shall not be subject to appeal and the panel may declare the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, and/or the Honorary Mentions, or any combination thereof, vacant if deemed appropriate.

The winner, or one member of the winning team, will be invited to present their paper at one of CEMLA’s conferences or seminars. Travel expenses, accommodation, and travel insurance will be covered by CEMLA. The winning author(s) must decide who will be the designated representative and inform CEMLA of its decision.

Copyrights

The author or authors of the paper or papers deserving the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, and the Honorary Mention(s) automatically grant the copyright to CEMLA, in particular, to translate, edit and publish the winning papers. While the award-winning papers are expected to be published in the Latin American Journal of Central Banking, they must still go through the journal's own review process.

Paper submission

Participants must send their papers in a file in Word or PDF (in their most recent versions) together with a completed entry form (available here) by email to the address: award@cemla.org, by April 26, 2024, at the latest.

Other aspects not foreseen in this call for papers will be resolved by CEMLA’s Board of Governors.

The CEMLA Central Bank Award (Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez), was established in 1970 (with its first edition in 1972) to encourage research in areas of interest for central banks. This award has become a yardstick for research at a regional level.

It should be noted that beginning from the 2020 edition there were some changes to the call for papers. Notable among these changes is that the author or authors of the study or studies worthy of the Award or Honorable Mention automatically grant their copyright to CEMLA, in particular, to translate, edit and publish the winning research. This seeks to facilitate the publication of these articles in the Latin American Journal of Central Banking.

 

 

Winners of the 2023 Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez

 

CEMLA's Board of Governors decided to grant the First Place of the 2023 Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez to two studies: “The Transmission of Non-Banking Liquidity Shocks to the Banking Sector” by Néstor Miguel Sarmiento Paipilla, and “GDP Nowcasting: A machine learning and remote sensing data-based approach for Bolivia” by Osmar Bolivar Rosales. In turn, the Board of Governors recognized Benjamín García Silva, Mario Giarda Ugalde, Carlos Lizama Sáez and Ignacio Rojas King with the Second Place Award for their study “A Baseline HANK for Chile”. The Third Place Award was declared vacant. Finally, the Board decided to recognize four Honorable Mentions for the following studies: “Are prudent monetary and fiscal policy drivers of FDI inflows?” by Helder Ferreira de Mendonça and Bruno Pires Tiberto“A Markov-Switching DSGE Model for Measuring the Output Gap in Brazil” by Eleonora de OliveiraAndreza Aparecida Palma and Marcelo Savino“Estimating Potential Output in Times of COVID-19” by Luigi Durand and Jorge Alberto Fornero; and “Nonlinear Impact of the Conventional Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Evidence” by Jorge Antonio Pozo Sánchez and Youel Rojas Zea.

Osmar Bolivar Rosales holds a M.A. in Policy Economics from Williams College (2017). He is a Researcher at the Ministry of Economy and Public Finance of Bolivia.

Néstor Miguel Sarmiento Paipilla holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Tilburg University (2019). He is a Research Economist at Banco de la República (Colombia) and a Fellow of the European Banking Center.

Benjamín García Silva holds a Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Santa Cruz (2015). He is Head of the Economic Modeling Department at Banco Central de Chile.

Mario Giarda Ugalde holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2021). He is a Senior Economist in the Modeling Department at Banco Central de Chile.

Carlos Lizama Sáez holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University (2020). He is a Senior Economist in the Medium-Term Forecasting Department at Banco Central de Chile.

Ignacio Rojas King holds a M.A. in Economics from Universidad de Chile (2021). He is an Economist in the Modeling Department at Banco Central de Chile.

Helder Ferreira de Mendonça holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (2001). He is Full Professor of Economics at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Researcher 1A at the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brazil) and Associate Editor of EconomiA.

Bruno Pires Tiberto holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidade Federal Fluminense (2016). He is Deputy Advisor in the Department of Statistics at Banco Central do Brasil.

Eleonora de Oliveira holds a MSc. In Economics from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (2021). She is an Economist at Banco Cooperativo Sicredi.

Andreza Aparecida Palma holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (2012). She is a Professor of Economics at the Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos.

Marcelo Savino Portugal holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Warwick (1993). He is a Professor of Economics at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Luigi Durand holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University (2020). He is Senior Economist at the Mid-Term Forecasting Department, Macroeconomic Analysis Unit, Monetary Policy Division at the Banco Central de Chile.

Jorge Alberto Fornero holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Antwerp University (2009). He is Head of the Mid-Term Forecasting Department, Macroeconomic Analysis Unit, Monetary Policy Division at the Banco Central de Chile.

Jorge Antonio Pozo Sánchez holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Univesitat Pompeu Fabra (2019). He is Head of the Monetary Statistics at Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.

Youel Rojas Zea holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2022). He is a Senior Analyst at the Macroeconomic Modelling Department of Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.

From their creation, in September of 1970 the award has been granted so far, to the following works:

Don Rodrigo Gómez (1897-1970)

He was a promoter of institutions. This was the first factor for explaining how he came up with founding CEMLA in 1952, then occupying a highly influential post at Banco de México. From this founding temple emerged other institutions that he helped establish. Such was the case for example of the Inter-American Development Bank which opened its doors in 1960, and many other bodies created at Banco de México aimed at fostering the country's economic progress. Through very skillful use of the public trust fund figure, during the time of Rodrigo Gómez, the Instituted Trust Funds Related to Agriculture were set up in 1954 and the Fund for Fostering Manufactured Goods Exports was created in 1960. These were followed some years later by other similar instruments for promoting social interest housing, industrial equipment and for developing areas of tourism. 

Another typical characteristic of Rodrigo Gómez was his vocation for Latin America. In honor of this characteristic, since 1958 he was assigned by the Mexican government to participate in sponsoring the Economic Commission for Latin America in work that would culminate in the creation of the Latin American Free Trade Association, LAFTA. In the specific area of central banking, the parallel idea was to create a multilateral payments system in the region. Since the corresponding work began, the Mexican representative stood out because of his intellectual capacity as well as his great dedication to encouraging economic integration among Latin American nations. He devoted himself to this ideal with great commitment, promoting it at many forums and negotiating platforms. 

The other factor explaining why Rodrigo Gómez encouraged the establishment of CEMLA was the interest he always showed in developing human resources at central banks. Being aware of the fact that the soul of these institutions mainly consists of the people who work at them and who give them their political and social dimensions, Rodrigo Gómez always paid great attention to the creation of professional teams at Banco de México. His children, as Rodrigo Gómez affectionately referred to young professionals with the highest potential, received the opportunity to study at the best universities in the country as well as abroad. Subsequently, under his careful guidance they excelled themselves in the performance of their growing responsibilities. 

CEMLA was a kind of legacy from Banco de México and Rodrigo Gómez, on an individual level, for the benefit of the central banks of Latin American countries.  It was a task that needed to be carried out with utmost diligence, improving CEMLA in order for it to become stronger and be as useful as possible. That wise and pragmatic Nuevoleonese instigator used to say that once the cart gets moving the pumpkins fall into place (things have a way of working themselves out). This commitment explains all the support CEMLA received from Banco de México, above all during its initial phase. The latter list importantly includes the help it received for obtaining its first premises and later in order for it to have its own head offices.  It is also worth mentioning the budgetary support and the willingness to allow technicians from Banco de México to collaborate in teaching and research work.