The Governor of the Bank of Spain, Mr. Luis Mª Linde, the President of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), Mr. José Mª Roldán, and his two predecessors at the helm of the AEB, Mr. Miguel Martín and Mr. José Luis Leal, together with a select group of economists, today paid a tribute of friendship and professional recognition to the recently deceased AEB Chief Economist, Federico Prades Sierra.
The President of the AEB highlighted the innovative and pioneering work of Federico Prades who, from the University of Louvain, imported modern economic forecasting to Spain in the early eighties. This analysis system – José Mª Roldán emphasized – constituted a valuable instrument in those days for building essential institutions, such as State Budgets endowed with rigor and credibility, which would provide certainty in such an essential area as the income and expenditure activity of Public Administrations.
José Mª Roldán took this opportunity to announce the call for the 1st Federico Prades Award for Young Economists, sponsored by the Spanish Banking Association, an award intended to continue the work of the person who served as Economic Advisor to the AEB for a quarter of a century.
During this event, the speakers, all of them prestigious economists and personal friends of the honoree, highlighted that for many years Federico Prades’ voice was one of the few that, despite its limited resources, could compete, both in rigor and certainty, with the services of the Bank of Spain or the Ministry of Economy, also offering unique and original approaches.
Among the participants in this event were the Director General of Economics and Statistics of the Bank of Spain, Mr. Pablo Hernández de Cos, the Chief Economist of the BBVA Group, Mr. Jorge Sicilia, the Deputy Director of the Research Department of Banco Santander, Mr. Antonio Cortina, the Senior Economist of the Bank of Spain, Ms. Elvira Prades, the Director of the Nebrija Santander Chair, Mr. Gonzalo Solana, the Director of Studies at Repsol, Mr. Antonio Merino, the President of AFI, Mr. Emilio Ontiveros, and the President of Freemarket, Mr. Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quirós.
Brief biographical note
Federico Prades was born in Valencia in 1947. Married with two children, he graduated and obtained a master’s degree in Economic Sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), where he began his professional career as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences and a researcher at the Institut de Récherches Economiques (IRES) (1970-76). He subsequently held the position of Director of the Economic Forecasting Department at said University (1976-82).
In 1983, he joined the Cabinet of the Spanish Government Presidency as an Advisory Member of the Department of Economy, responsible for the macroeconomic area. In July 1985, he was appointed Director General of Forecasting and Economic Analysis at the Ministry of Economy and Finance and was a member and Vice-President, as a representative of the Spanish Government, of the Economic Policy Committees of the OECD and the EU Commission, respectively. He also served on the Boards of Directors of Initec, Repsol, and Enagás. Furthermore, he was part of the Independent Group of Economic Forecasting Experts established by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
In 1991, he joined the Spanish Private Banking Association (AEB) where he served as Economic Advisor until his passing on September 23, 2015. A regular contributor to media outlets, he frequently participated in seminars, discussions, and study sessions.
