Nuffield Fellow Meg Meyer receives inaugural Role Models in Economics Award
Nuffield College is proud to announce that Meg Meyer, Official Fellow in Economics, has been awarded the first ever Role Models in Economics Award by the European Economic Association (EEA). The EEA has created this prestigious award to recognise economists ‘who are both true scholars and outstanding contributors to the public good in the Economics profession’.
As a ‘true scholar’ and leading microeconomics theorist, Meg has made many significant contributions to her field, including pioneering studies on influence costs and corporate structure, dynamic incentives within organisations, and oligopolistic competition under uncertainty. These breakthroughs are detailed here.
Alongside her decades of scholarship, Meg’s work as a ‘contributor to the public good’ has played an equal part in earning her a reputation as an exceptional academic. Since completing her own doctorate in 1986, she has supervised nearly 40 DPhil students – an extraordinary commitment to future generations of economists. In addition, she has mentored many postdocs through Nuffield’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship programme. Her guidance and support of these young economists has led many of them to develop highly influential careers in academia, industry and world economics.
Beyond her work in Oxford, Meg co-founded ESSET, the European Summer Symposium in Economic Theory, in 1992. Widely acknowledged to be one of the most important economic theory events, this annual symposium brings together economists from across Europe to share their research. Priority is always given to those in the earlier stages of their careers, giving them a much-needed opportunity to present their papers to world-leading experts.
A common theme in Meg’s numerous nominations for this award is, unsurprisingly, her impact on those starting their economics careers. One sums up Meg’s contribution: “Meg is a ‘mensch’ in that she is always generous with her time and always empowers young scholars by showing a deep interest in their work. Equally important, Meg Meyer has contributed comments to hundreds of working papers of junior scholars. There is hardly anybody else in Europe who shows up as consistently in the acknowledgements of theory papers as she does. She is an absolutely invaluable resource.”
The award comes with a 10,000 euro grant, which will be used to support an initiative that fosters the careers of PhD students and junior faculty in Europe. This aligns not only with one of the EEA’s fundamental missions, but also with Meg’s own dedication to the next generation.
Read more on the EEA’s website.