The President of the AEB Foundation, Miguel Martín, and the President of the Spanish Banking Association, José Mª Roldán, today presented the first Federico Prades Award for Young Economists to María Rodríguez Moreno and Sergio Mayordomo Gómez, at an event that featured the participation of the President of the National Securities Market Commission, Sebastián Albella.
As the President of the AEB, José Mª Roldán, recalled during the event, with this award the AEB Foundation and the Spanish Banking Association aim to continue the work of Federico Prades who, as the Association’s economic advisor, carried out innovative and pioneering work in the field of modern economic analysis for nearly 30 years.
For his part, Sebastián Albella praised the figure of Federico Prades, with whom he shared a professional and friendly relationship. He highlighted that “we had a great rapport in terms of how we saw life, valued current events, and our sense of humor,” adding that Prades also helped him understand how the economy works.
The award-winning paper, titled “Did the bank capital relief induced by the supporting factor enhance SME lending?” (“Capital Requirements and Credit: Analysis of the SME Support Factor”), stands out, according to the jury, for the robustness and clarity of its analysis focused on the role played by banks in SME lending, a topic that has been very important for Europe during the economic crisis and which the work of María Rodríguez and Sergio Mayordomo also manages to bring closer to the Spanish context.
32 papers were submitted for the award, endowed by the AEB Foundation with 20,000 euros, most of which address financial and banking sector topics, with the rest covering other aspects of economic activity. Almost all of them come from leading universities and business schools in Spain, but also from Germany, the USA, and Uruguay, which demonstrates the broad interest this award has generated in the academic field.
Under the presidency of Gonzalo Solana, director of the Nebrija Santander Global Chair in Business Internationalization, the jury was composed of Pablo Hernández de Cos, Director General of Economics and Statistics at the Bank of Spain, Alejandra Kindelán, Director of Research, Public Policy, and Institutional Relations at Banco Santander, Jorge Sicilia, Research Chief Economist at BBVA, Pablo Vázquez, Director of CUNEF, Antonio Merino, Director of Studies at Repsol, Fernando Fernández, Professor of Economics at IE Business School, and Juan Carlos Delrieu, Director of Strategic Planning at the AEB, who served as the jury’s secretary.
