Kiel Institute honors climate economist Nicholas Stern and young academics

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy honored several individuals for their achievements in economic Research on Saturday. British climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern (London School of Economics) was honored with the Bernhard Harms Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros. Javier Cravino (University of Michigan) and Michela Giorcelli (University of California, Los Angeles) received the Kiel Excellence Awards in Global Economic Affairs, an award for young researchers that comes with a research fellowship.

Professor Lord Nicholas Stern is Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

His research is considered a milestone in climate economics. If policymakers remain inactive, global GDP will fall by 5 percent in the long term as a result of climate change, and by as much as 20 percent in the worst case, according to his analysis. By contrast, decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example, can limit the loss to 1 percent.

His study “The Economics of Climate Change,” commissioned by the British government, made headlines around the world as the so-called “Stern Report.” The British Queen honored him for his achievements the year after publication by making him a cross-bench life peer as Baron Stern of Brentford which made him a member in the House of Lords.

“For the jury, Lord Stern is an outstanding global pioneer in the debate about the economic costs of climate change,” said Kiel Institute President Gabriel Felbermayr at the ceremony. “It is not least thanks to his work that efficient economic incentives such as CO2 pricing are playing an increasingly important role in today's political debate on effective measures to limit CO2 emissions.”

Lord Nicholas Stern said: “I am honored to be awarded the prestigious Bernhard Harms Prize from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which has pioneered excellence since its inception and today offers crucial insight into the great economic challenges of our times.”

In his address, Stern urged decisive action in the fight against climate change: “We are at a special moment in history. We face urgent challenges in climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss—and we are seeing these all too vividly realized in floods, fires, and melting ice caps around the world.”

The Bernhard Harms Prize of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy has been awarded every two years since 1964 and annually since 2020 and is endowed with 10,000 euros. The award honors scholars for exceptional research in global economics or practitioners for outstanding promotion of global economic relations. Past award winners include economists Carmen Reinhart (2018), Marc Melitz (2016), and Abhijit Banerjee (2014).

Bernhard Harms founded the Kiel Institute for World Economy in 1914—at that time: Royal Institute of Shipping and World Economics.

The Kiel Excellence Awards 2021 were awarded to:

• Prof. Javier Cravino (University of Michigan), for his contribution to the field on International Trade and Macroeconomics. He receives the Theodor-Wille-Heinrich-Diederichsen-'Fair Trade'-Fellowship.

• Prof. Michela Giorcelli (University of California, Los Angeles), for her outstanding contributions to the field of Economic History and Innovation. She receives the Porsche Fellowship.

Created to promote young talent, the Excellence Awards are open to researchers and academics up to 35 years of age. Each laureate will be awarded a Research Fellowship at the Kiel Institute funded through separate scholarship programs. The aim of the Kiel Institute’s Excellence Awards in Global Economic Affairs is to build an international community of young economic researchers. The Excellence Awards have been presented annually since 2007.

The awarding took place during the Kiel Lectures Day at Kiel Christian Albrechts University (CAU). Photos of the award winners will be available later today at www.ifw-kiel.de/kiel-lectures-day.

The Kiel Lectures Day is a joint initiative of CAU Kiel and the Kiel Institute to add another facet to Kiel as a science location through lectures by renowned personalities from science, politics, and society.