UPF Economics PhD candidate Gergely Gánics has been selected as a winner of the UniCredit & Universities 3rd Annual Economics Job Market Best Paper Award. His paper "Optimal density forecast combinations" was chosen as one of two winners chosen among competing PhD candidates from 17 countries.

PhD students and recent graduates are allowed to enter the competition with original research on topics related to economic subjects, with the two winners being awarded €2,000 each. Winners are also invited to present their papers at the Spanish Economic Association Job Market, to be held in Bilbao in December 2016.

Gergely's paper explores how researchers can combine predictive densities to improve their forecasts. Examining how housing permits had valuable predictive power before and after the Great Recession, Gergely further shows that stock returns and corporate bond spreads proved to be useful predictors during the recent crisis. His paper suggests that financial variables help with density forecasting in a highly leveraged economy.

As an alumni of the Barcelona GSE Master in Economics programme, Gergely was featured in an interview by the GSE. A non-technical summary of his paper was also featured in the Barcelona GSE publication The Voice.

Gergely is pursuing his PhD through the UPF Graduate Programme in Economics, Finance and Management (GPEFM). To find out more about Gergely's economic research, please visit his UPF Job Market Candidate page.