The European Association of Co-operative Banks handed out the Awards for Young Researchers during a webinar on the future of co-operative banks last month.
In their ninth year, the awards are aimed at researchers under 35, to encourage them to to investigate the specificities of co-operative banks.
The webinar heard from Bruno de Menna, who won first prize for his paper Monetary policy, credit risk, and profitability: The influence of relationship lending on cooperative banks’ performance.
A junior lecturer in macroeconomics at Sciences Po Toulouse, Université Fédérale de Toulouse, Mr de Menna presented his paper on the influence of relationship lending on co-operative banks’ performance. The research explores the impact of monetary easing on bank credit risk and profitability in 10 eurozone countries between 2010 and 2019.
The jury said the paper “was highly relevant and applies some existing research and methods to the particular field of co-operative banks”.
Prof Silvio Goglio, who chaired the judging panel, said: “The award had a harvest rich from a qualitative point of view two of them outperforming many of the submissions received previously; if they were not in the same year, we could easily have seen them both winning the award.”
The runner up was Erika Baraglia, from the Department of Management and Law of the University of Rome, who was also awarded a special prize for her paper Funding liquidity risk and financial stability: evidence from cooperative banks.
The EACB is looking for submissions for the 10th edition of the awards. Submissions must be written in English, be 10,000 words or less and relate directly to co-operative banks. Contributions must not have been published in any scientific journals or books before 27 May 2022.
The EACB would particularly welcome papers that compare co-operative banks with other types of banking organisations.
More information on the call for papers is available on EACB’s website.
