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Time: 20 November, 2017 at 14:00
Place: Charles University Karolinum, Ovocný trh 5, Praha 1

It is our honor to announce that Professor Christopher Sims of Princeton University, the 2011 Nobel Laureate in Economics and a member of CERGE-EI’s Executive and Supervisory Committee, will be awarded an honorary degree Doctor Honoris Causa from Charles University on 20 November, 2017 at Charles University Carolinum.

We would like to invite you all to this special event. To join the ceremony, please register here by 15 November, 2017.

Prof. Christopher Sims, the John J. F. Sherrerd ‘52 University Professor of Economics, earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1968. Prior to becoming a professor of economics at Princeton University in 1999, he held professorship positions at the University of Minnesota and Yale University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was the president of the Econometric Society in 1995, and acted as the president of the American Economic Association in 2012.

Prof. Sims shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics with Thomas Sargent "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy." One of Prof. Sims’ achievements was to develop the “vector autoregression” method to analyze how the economy is affected by temporary changes in economic policy and other factors. His contributions have influenced the birth of the “quantitative macroeconomy” and they continue to be the basis not only for academic discussions, but also for policy tools used by most central banks around the world. Prof. Sims has further stood at the root of several influential theoretical approaches, including the fiscal theory of the price level and discrete stochastic models of general equilibrium. One of his more recent specializations has been the theory of rational inattention and its applications, an area in which Prof. Sims has been working closely with CERGE-EI faculty member Filip Matějka.

Since 2013, Prof. Sims has been devoting precious time to CERGE-EI as an Executive and Supervisory Committee member, watching over the academic excellence of the institution and contributing to its strategic decisions. He has also participated in several of our events, most recently the 3rd Conference on Rational Inattention and Related Topics.

Prof. Sims has been also been awarded the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Karel Engliš Honorary Medal for Merit in the Social and Economic Sciences. The presentation of the medal by Prof. Jiří Drahoš, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, was one of the highlights of the CERGE-EI 25th Anniversary Gala held on 27 May, 2016.