Jury Report ENCORE Thesis Prizes 2005-2006
Intro
In order to stimulate academic research and education in industrial economics in the Netherlands, ENCORE annually awards a prize for the best master’s and bachelors’s thesis in the field of competition and regulation. Thirteen master's theses competed for the ENCORE Master’s Thesis Prize 2005-2006, a noticeable six more than last year.
The Jury decided to exclude the two bachelor’s theses from the newly announced competition for bachelor prizes, since the number of theses was considered too small to speak of a serious competition. The thirteen competing master's theses were written by students from Erasmus University Rotterdam (2), Tilburg University (5), the University of Amsterdam (1), the Free University of Amsterdam (1), Maastricht University (1), Groningen University (2), and finally, as a novelty this year, one from a foreign University (Staffordshire UK).
Given the high quality of the submitted theses, the jury decided to award a first, a second and a third prize. In addition because of the theme of the Annual Conference, the jury decided to award a special 'Creativity Prize' worth 543,21 Euro. The decision of the jury was unanimous. The theses were often very well written, dealt with relevant topics and the treatment of the subject matter was original. The submissions, accordingly, point out that excellent students consider competition and regulation to be worthy topics for their MA thesis. The jury consisted of Peter van Bergeijk, Marco Haan, Jarig van Sinderen and Marcel Canoy (chair). Van Bergeijk and Canoy were also members of the 2004-2005 jury.
The theses were evaluated on the basis of six independent criteria:
- Style and accessibility;
- Review of the literature and its relevance;
- Quality;
- Originality;
- Relevance science;
- Relevancy policy.
Quality counted double. Two years ago the jury had to note that the papers were hardly empirical in nature and less informed about (Dutch) data, markets and policies. Last year there were plenty of empirical theses, but the jury was concerned about the lack of proper economic reasoning and the overemphasis of technique. This year was a clear improvement over last year in that area, which the jury warmly welcomes.
The jury stresses the impressive achievements of the contenders; the average quality seems to go up every year. This years' prize winners showed the broad spectrum of instruments and variety of topics, from theoretical, to empirical, to competition law and applied economics. The three prize winners were very close in quality, and the ordering was tight until the very end of the decision process.
Theses
Special 'Creativity Prize': Nine Steensma, University of Maastricht
The creativity prize goes to a thesis that combines trade economics, development economics, innovation economics and competition law, in an attempt to understand what type of Competition Authority is suitable for developing countries. Both the originality of the subject and the creative mix of different economic tools have led the jury to award the prize to this thesis. A good example of Schumpeterian 'Neue Kombinationen'!
Third Prize: Ingrid Liedorp, University of Tilburg
This thesis was very well written and contained a highly policy relevant topic, the supply of specialist health care services in the Netherlands. Its main angle was to analyze whether or not there was a level playing field in that market and what could be done (if anything) to level the market. The thesis was complete and its policy recommendations useful.
Second Prize: Bart Voogt, Erasmus University Rotterdam
This theoretical thesis was a crisply written analysis of the advertisement strategy of supermarkets. The theoretical modelling was classy, the results were properly interpreted, and where possible were their relevance empirically translated. No small achievement for a master's thesis.
Given the nature of the encore network this has in the end led the jury to award the first prize to:
First Prize: Gertjan Driessen, University of Groningen
This year the prize winning study in the ENCORE master’s thesis prize deals with the policy relevant issue on how to regulate the rail market. Different competition designs can lead to different outcomes. The thesis attempts to systematically measure the effects of different designs on productive efficiency. It does so by first using a DEA analysis to determine the relative efficiency of national railroads, and then using a Tobit regression to relate these efficiencies to competition design. It is an impressive achievement to tackle a policy relevant problem in such a comprehensive way, and the jury would like to add that this thesis was - again - very well written.
In its decision to award the first prize to this thesis the jury is not blind for its limitations, which are the lengthy text book introduction as well as the lack of institutional details that would have facilitated a richer conclusion. What has been a decisive factor is that this thesis showed a large variety of instruments available in the economic toolkit on a policy relevant problem.
