Joop Hartog Dissertation Award presented to Tijmen Daniëls

Tijmen Daniëls has won the Joop Hartog Dissertation Award for his PhD thesis ‘Rationalised Panics. The Consequences of Strategic Uncertainty during Financial Crises.'

The current financial crisis erupted following a long period of optimism in international markets. Other major crises such as the Asian debt and currency crisis of 1997 and the Tequila crisis of 1994 likewise occurred after long periods of stability. What is the mechanism that causes this turnaround? In his thesis, Tijmen Daniëls asserts that confusion in the markets with regard to the intentions of other agents is the key to understanding crises. Because decisions made in financial markets influence each other, this ‘strategic' uncertainty can have far-reaching effects on economic agents. This in turn leads to large-scale and sudden changes in behaviour. Daniëls demonstrates that by modeling this strategic uncertainty, important aspects of the major currency and debt crises of the past few years can be explained. This answers questions regarding the effects of the duration structure of debts in triggering the crisis, the factors affecting the timing of a crisis and the role played by defense measures and policy makers.

About the Joop Hartog Dissertation Award

The award was founded in 2007 to mark Joop Hartog's 25 years as a professor of Microeconomics at the Faculty of Economics and Business. The award is given for the best PhD thesis at the Amsterdam School of Economics during the past two calendar years. This is the second time that the award, consisting of a 2,500 euro cash prize and a medal (designed by Bo Reudler Studio), has been presented.