Congratulations to Fernando Broner, who wins an ERC grant

Fernando Broner, a specialist on international finance and sovereign debt, was deputy director of ITFD for its first two years and is now on the steering committee as well as teaching 2 courses (and co-directing independent study projects). He has just won an ERC starting grant award. I want to congratulate him on this important distinction -- the ERC has been at the forefront of modernizing science funding in Europe, by making it more open, competitive, and all-round sensible (i.e. more like the NSF in the US). But then, I would say that -- I got one, too, in the first round of the advanced grant scheme a few years back. Jaume Ventura, who is in charge of student affairs at ITFD and teaching courses on "contemporary problems in macro" as well as "international finance", got one last year, and so did Nicola Gennaioli, who is teaching for us in the third term... which means that 4 professors involved in running our program got a love letter from Brussels. At least as a percentage, I think this must be higher than in any other masters program in Europe... and UPF economics must have one of the highest concentrations of ERC awards, given that Fernando is bringing our total to 8:

1. Jordi Gali
2. Jaume Ventura
3. Jan Eekhout
4. Gino Gancia
5. Nicola Gennaioli
6. Joachim Voth
7. Marta Reynal
8. Fernando Broner