CEMLA Central Bank Award


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CALL FOR PAPERS 2025

The CEMLA Central Bank Award (formerly Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez) was established in 1970 (with its first edition in 1972) to encourage research in areas of interest for central banks. The bases for the 2025 Award Edition are presented below.

Participants

The author(s) of the paper submitted to the Award must be a natural person with the nationality of a Latin American or Caribbean country,1 Canada, Spain, or the United States of America; or a person of a different nationality, but who is working in one of CEMLA’s affiliated institutions in the above-mentioned countries, both at the time of the paper’s submission, and when the prize is awarded. Should the paper be written by two or more authors, at least one of them must meet the above-mentioned nationality criteria. No staff member from CEMLA may participate. Similarly, the author(s) of the paper submitted must be affiliated to a public, educational or multilateral institution. If the paper is written by more than one author, one of them may be affiliated to a private non-educational financial institution. Authors who have won the First Place Award in the last two editions (2023 and 2024) of the Award are not eligible to participate.


1 Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Curaçao and St. Maarten, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Eastern Caribbean States (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Granada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay.

Thematic and requirements

The Award invites paper contributions within the broad range of topics of interest to central banks, including (but not limited to) monetary theory and policy, financial intermediation (both theory and empirics), climate-related aspects of financial stability and monetary policy, digitalization and financial markets, and payments and market infrastructures.

No more than one paper per author will be accepted. If a paper is written by more than one author, each of them must approve the paper’s submission for the Award.

The submitted papers must be original and, in their final versions, written in the format of an academic article. They must not have been published either as a book or as a part of a journal or compilation (e.g., technical reports, institutional proceedings, conference proceedings), either in printed or electronic form. Works that have been circulated at meetings, seminars, conferences or on websites, in printed or electronic form, as working papers for consultation during their preparatory stages are allowed. Author(s) of papers which have been available on websites will be requested to remove them from such sites. University degree theses, as well as papers submitted to the meetings of the Central Bank Researchers Network of this Center, may also be submitted to the Award, so long as they comply with the requirements in this call.

Papers should preferably be presented in English, although papers in Spanish, French or Portuguese will be accepted. The papers should not exceed 20,000 words or 50 pages (whichever comes first), including the cover, abstract, introduction, main body, conclusions, and appendices or annexes.

No papers that have participated in previous editions of the CEMLA Central Bank Award (formerly Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez) may be submitted. Submitted papers may not compete for other awards or be under consideration by other publications until the authors have received a written notification with the results of each evaluation round indicating that their paper is free of such an embargo.

Jury and evaluation process

The panel of judges must comprise seven Governors of the central bank Associate Members of CEMLA’s Board of Governors, or their representatives; the Director General of CEMLA, or his or her representative; two ex officio members of CEMLA; and, if necessary, up to three additional members representing other Associate or Collaborating Members, renowned researchers, or both. In case of discrepancies in any evaluation(s), CEMLA will consult with the corresponding members of the jury and may act as the final evaluator. CEMLA will see to the administrative aspects of the contest. In case of a delay on the submission of any of the grades from the panel’s members, the final grade can be determined with at least 80% of the jury.

When remitting the papers to the members of the panel, CEMLA must suppress the names of the authors and assign a pseudonym to each submitted paper, which will be the only means of identification available to the panel in communicating the corresponding evaluations. It is the ultimate responsibility of the authors to ensure that the content of the text is anonymized.

The papers must be evaluated by objective criteria and mechanisms defined by CEMLA’s Board of Governors, in two different evaluation rounds. That said, prior to the first round, CEMLA will prescreen the papers that have a chance of being awarded. Once the first evaluation round has concluded, CEMLA will inform the authors if their papers were selected as finalists, that is, if the paper will be evaluated in the second round. The Board of Governors shall grant the Award based on the second-round results during its meeting in the second semester. CEMLA will then notify the outcome to all participants as well as to other interested parties.

Awards

The First Place Award will consist of the amount of fifteen thousand United States dollars and a diploma. The Second Place Award will consist of the amount of five thousand United States dollars and a diploma. The Third Place Award will consist of the amount of two thousand five hundred United States dollars and a diploma. Honorary Mentions can also be awarded to up to eight other papers. Honorary Mentions' papers will be awarded with a prize of one thousand United States dollars each. In case of a tie for the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, or the Honorary Mentions between two or more competing papers, the monetary prize will be divided in equal parts among the papers, and for each of them, in equal parts among the authors. The result shall not be subject to appeal and the panel may declare the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, and/or the Honorary Mentions, or any combination thereof, vacant if deemed appropriate.

The winner, or one member of the winning team, will be invited to present their paper at one of CEMLA’s conferences or seminars. Travel expenses, accommodation, and travel insurance will be covered by CEMLA. The winning author(s) must decide who will be the designated representative and inform CEMLA of its decision.

Copyrights

The author or authors of the paper or papers deserving the First Place Award, the Second Place Award, the Third Place Award, and the Honorary Mention(s) automatically grant the copyright to CEMLA, in particular, to translate, edit and publish the winning papers. While the award-winning papers are expected to be published in the Latin American Journal of Central Banking, they must still go through the journal's own review process.

Paper submission

Participants must send their papers in a file in Word or PDF (in their most recent versions) together with a completed entry form (available here) by email to the address: award@cemla.org, by April 25, 2025, at the latest.

Other aspects not foreseen in this call for papers will be resolved by CEMLA’s Board of Governors.

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The CEMLA Central Bank Award (Central Bank Award Rodrigo Gómez), was established in 1970 (with its first edition in 1972) to encourage research in areas of interest for central banks. This award has become a yardstick for research at a regional level.

It should be noted that beginning from the 2020 edition there were some changes to the call for papers. Notable among these changes is that the author or authors of the study or studies worthy of the Award or Honorable Mention automatically grant their copyright to CEMLA, in particular, to translate, edit and publish the winning research. This seeks to facilitate the publication of these articles in the Latin American Journal of Central Banking.

 

 

Winners of the 2024 CEMLA Central Bank Award

 

CEMLA's Board of Governors decided to grant the First Place of the 2024 CEMLA Central Bank Award to the study “Leavers and Stayers after Mass Layoffs: Labor and Credit Market Outcomes” by Bruno Perdigão, Carlos Carvalho, Natália Corado, and Gustavo Gonzaga. In turn, the Board of Governors recognized Néstor Miguel Sarmiento Paipilla with the Second Place Award for his study “The real effects of Too-Big-To-Fail regulation: Evidence from emerging markets”. The Third Place Award was granted to “Delinquency rate in the Peruvian agro-export sector in the context of the El Niño Phenomenon: firm-level evidence for the period 2013-2019” by Pedro L. Azañedo, Luis A. Casaverde, Denys Casiano, and José Lupú. Finally, the Board decided to recognize two Honorable Mentions for the following studies: “Credit market sentiment, investor monitoring and firms' international borrowing” by Jose Maria Serena, and “Beyond Carry-Trading: New Insights into the Uses of Foreign-Denominated Bond Issuances by Latin American Firms” by Rodrigo Pérez-Artica, Joel Rabinovich, and Nicolás Zeolla.

  • Bruno Perdigão, Banco Central do Brasil and International Monetary Fund
  • Carlos Carvalho, Kapitalo Investimentos and PUC-Rio
  • Natália Corado, PUC-Rio
  • Gustavo Gonzaga, PUC-Rio
  • Néstor Miguel Sarmiento, Banco de la República (Colombia) and the European Banking Center
  • Pedro L. Azañedo, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú
  • Luis A. Casaverde, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú
  • Denys Casiano, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú
  • José Lupú, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú
  • Jose Maria Serena, Banco de España
  • Rodrigo Pérez-Artica, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur
  • Joel Rabinovich, King’s College London             
  • Nicolás Zeolla, Banco Central de la República Argentina

From their creation, in September of 1970 the award has been granted so far, to the following works:

  • Leavers and Stayers after Mass Layoffs: Labor and Credit Market Outcomes
    Bruno Perdigão, Carlos Carvalho, Natália Corado, Gustavo Gonzaga
    2024 First Place Award
  • The real effects of Too-Big-To-Fail regulation: Evidence from emerging markets
    Miguel Sarmiento
    2024 Second Place Award
  • Delinquency rate in the Peruvian agro-export sector in the context of the El Niño Phenomenon: firm-level evidence for the period 2013-2019
    Pedro L. Azañedo, Luis A. Casaverde, Denys Casiano, José Lupú
    2024 Third Place Award
  • Credit market sentiment, investor monitoring and firms' international borrowing
    Jose Maria Serena
    2024 Honorary Mention
  • Beyond Carry-Trading: New Insights into the Uses of Foreign-Denominated Bond Issuances by Latin American Firms
    Rodrigo Pérez-Artica, Joel Rabinovich, Nicolás Zeolla
    2024 Honorary Mention

Don Rodrigo Gómez (1897-1970)

He was a promoter of institutions. This was the first factor for explaining how he came up with founding CEMLA in 1952, then occupying a highly influential post at Banco de México. From this founding temple emerged other institutions that he helped establish. Such was the case for example of the Inter-American Development Bank which opened its doors in 1960, and many other bodies created at Banco de México aimed at fostering the country's economic progress. Through very skillful use of the public trust fund figure, during the time of Rodrigo Gómez, the Instituted Trust Funds Related to Agriculture were set up in 1954 and the Fund for Fostering Manufactured Goods Exports was created in 1960. These were followed some years later by other similar instruments for promoting social interest housing, industrial equipment and for developing areas of tourism. 

Another typical characteristic of Rodrigo Gómez was his vocation for Latin America. In honor of this characteristic, since 1958 he was assigned by the Mexican government to participate in sponsoring the Economic Commission for Latin America in work that would culminate in the creation of the Latin American Free Trade Association, LAFTA. In the specific area of central banking, the parallel idea was to create a multilateral payments system in the region. Since the corresponding work began, the Mexican representative stood out because of his intellectual capacity as well as his great dedication to encouraging economic integration among Latin American nations. He devoted himself to this ideal with great commitment, promoting it at many forums and negotiating platforms. 

The other factor explaining why Rodrigo Gómez encouraged the establishment of CEMLA was the interest he always showed in developing human resources at central banks. Being aware of the fact that the soul of these institutions mainly consists of the people who work at them and who give them their political and social dimensions, Rodrigo Gómez always paid great attention to the creation of professional teams at Banco de México. His children, as Rodrigo Gómez affectionately referred to young professionals with the highest potential, received the opportunity to study at the best universities in the country as well as abroad. Subsequently, under his careful guidance they excelled themselves in the performance of their growing responsibilities. 

CEMLA was a kind of legacy from Banco de México and Rodrigo Gómez, on an individual level, for the benefit of the central banks of Latin American countries.  It was a task that needed to be carried out with utmost diligence, improving CEMLA in order for it to become stronger and be as useful as possible. That wise and pragmatic Nuevoleonese instigator used to say that once the cart gets moving the pumpkins fall into place (things have a way of working themselves out). This commitment explains all the support CEMLA received from Banco de México, above all during its initial phase. The latter list importantly includes the help it received for obtaining its first premises and later in order for it to have its own head offices.  It is also worth mentioning the budgetary support and the willingness to allow technicians from Banco de México to collaborate in teaching and research work.