Economics, Econometrics & Finance finalists

Finalists, not winners. Each subject has ten finalist universities; each is represented by an academic and a project identified from the open scholarly record, with the paper cited so every claim can be checked. The exact positions publish with the full index on 15 September 2026 at 09:00 UK, when the awards become a headline strand of the global launch. Winners are decided by editorial review and announced on 15 September 2026. The Subject Awards are exclusive to partner universities.

The finalists

Ten universities. Ten projects. Ten academics.

Zheng Song

🇭🇰 Chinese University of Hong Kong · Co-author

From Imitation to Innovation: Where Is All That Chinese R&D Going?

Built around an endogenous growth model in which firms upgrade technology by innovating or imitating, the study quantifies how misallocation shapes productivity growth in emerging economies. Estimated on the empirical distribution of research spending and productivity growth in China from 2007 to 2012, and compared with Taiwan, it uses counterfactuals to weigh alternative policies.

Econometrica · 2022 · 107 citations · co-authors across 6 countries

Werner Brouwer

🇳🇱 Professor of Health Economics, Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam · Co-author

Risk communication during COVID-19: A descriptive study on familiarity with, adherence to and trust in the WHO preventive measures

Brouwer is a leading health economist at Erasmus University Rotterdam working on economic evaluation, welfare theory and societal decision-making in healthcare. In this seven-country European study with partners including Bocconi University, Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Universitat Hamburg, he examined public familiarity with, adherence to and trust in WHO preventive measures during the pandemic.

PLOS ONE · 2021 · 57 citations

Franco Sassi

🇬🇧 Professor of International Health Policy and Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Innovation, Imperial College London · Co-author

Policy implementation and priorities to create healthy food environments using the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI): a pooled level analysis across eleven European countries

Sassi, formerly head of the OECD public health programme, studies the economics of chronic disease prevention and fiscal policies for health at Imperial College Business School. In this eleven-country European collaboration he helped benchmark government food-environment policies using the Food-EPI index, identifying priority actions for healthier food systems across diverse economies.

The Lancet Regional Health - Europe · 2022 · 64 citations

Elizabeth J. Z. Robinson

🇬🇧 Professor of Environmental Economics and Director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science · Co-author

The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms

Robinson is an environmental economist directing the Grantham Research Institute at LSE, working on the economics of climate change, food security and livelihoods. She co-authored the 2023 Lancet Countdown report, a global multi-institution assessment tracking health and climate indicators, which argues for a health-centred economic response to accelerating climate harms.

The Lancet · 2023 · 1,167 citations

Chorh Chuan Tan

🇸🇬 National University of Singapore · Corresponding author

Singapore's health-care system: key features, challenges, and shifts

Every country grapples with how to organise and pay for health care, and each system offers lessons for the others. The work examines Singapore's health-care system, setting out its key features, the challenges it confronts and the shifts taking place within it.

The Lancet · 2021 · 268 citations · co-authors across 3 countries

Steve Pye

🇬🇧 University College London · Co-author

Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom

Cutting how much energy we use may matter as much as changing how we produce it. Building a bottom-up, whole-system framework applied to the United Kingdom, the study finds that energy demand could fall by 52 per cent by 2050 without compromising citizens' quality of life, reducing reliance on high-risk carbon dioxide removal technologies.

Nature Energy · 2022 · 190 citations

David Anthoff

🇺🇸 University of California, Berkeley · Corresponding author

Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO2

Every tonne of carbon dioxide imposes costs on society, and governments need a credible number for them. Updating the social cost of carbon with improved socioeconomic projections, climate models, damage functions and discounting methods, the study shows that comprehensive evidence implies a higher value than the estimates governments have relied on for over a decade.

Nature · 2022 · 1,055 citations

Christopher Rauh

🇬🇧 University of Cambridge · Corresponding author

Work that can be done from home: evidence on variation within and across occupations and industries

Which jobs can actually be done from home? Rather than treating occupations as uniform, the study examines evidence on how the scope for home working varies both within and across occupations and industries, offering a more finely grained picture of a question with clear consequences for how work is organised.

Labour Economics · 2021 · 150 citations · co-authors across 3 countries

Zhenci Xu

🇭🇰 University of Hong Kong · Co-author

Decoupling of SDGs followed by re-coupling as sustainable development progresses

Progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals does not happen in isolation, as advances on one goal can move with or against others. The study examines relationships among the goals over time, describing a pattern in which they first decouple and later re-couple as sustainable development progresses, insight relevant to coordinating policy across goals.

Nature Sustainability · 2022 · 337 citations · co-authors across 4 countries

Stavros Petrou

🇬🇧 University of Oxford · Co-author

“This research provides internationally agreed guidance for transparent and consistent reporting of health economic evaluations so that evidence on costs and outcomes can be trusted, compared and used.”

Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards 2022 (CHEERS 2022) Statement: Updated Reporting Guidance for Health Economic Evaluations

Health economic evaluations guide decisions about which interventions to fund, so they must be reported clearly. The work presents the CHEERS 2022 statement, updated reporting guidance that replaces the 2013 version, designed to apply more easily to all types of health economic evaluation and to reflect new methods and the increased role of stakeholders.

Value in Health · 2022 · 1,085 citations · co-authors across 8 countries

Exclusive to partners

The Subject Awards are open to partner universities.

Partners verify their data, feature their academics, and are eligible for the Subject Awards. Finalists are identified from open data; winners are decided by our editorial team and announced on 15 September 2026.

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