The paper “Economic Information Discovery across Commodity Markets: New Evidence from a Dynamic Factor Model Approach” has won a prestigious award at the leading annual conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), which took place in Mombasa, Kenya September 11–14, 2018. 

The paper is co-authored by Dr. Ilias Visvikis, Professor and Director of the AUS Center for Executive and Professional Education; Dr. George Alexandridis, Associate Professor at the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Centre, University of Reading; Dr. Satya Sahoo, Assistant Professor at the World Maritime University; and Dr. Jason Angelopoulos, President of the Regulatory Port Authority, Greece.

The study examines economic information transmission between key commodity and maritime markets using a dynamic factor model, offering important insights that can be utilized as a leading indicator in facilitating decision making for charterers, commodity houses and ship owners.

Dr. Jan Hoffmann, IAME President, commented:
“The new prize—only established last year, to commemorate our 25th anniversary—is a fitting way to acknowledge this outstanding research. Having received the highest marks from independent peer reviewers, and having applied a novel research approach, the findings on ‘Economic Information Discovery across Commodity Markets’ surely merit this recognition.”

Speaking about the achievement, Dr. Visvikis said:
“We are delighted to have won this prestigious award, and we are grateful for the recognition of our work by the IAME. The award reflects the direction AUS is taking and its role in shaping the research agenda in international forums. The study is the result of an excellent collaboration among prominent academics in the field and contributes significantly in the area of international commodity trade and transport.”

The award, which is IAME’s 25th anniversary commemoration prize, was established last year at the organization’s 25th conference held in Kyoto, Japan.  The IAME Kyoto Conference Excellent Paper Award, as it is officially known, is sponsored by the Graduate School of Management of Kyoto University. It is awarded to the conference paper that has received one of the highest scores in the review process and has an important academic or practical contribution.