Emerald publishing group has just awarded one of its Emerald Literati Awards to the PhD in Economics Estefanía Mourelle. She is a member of the C+D Group (Competitiveness and Regional Development in the European Union) research group at A Coruña University, and a member of ECOBAS.

The award-winning article has received the mention of “Highly Commended Paper”

These prizes have been awarded for the past 25 years to recognise outstanding contributions made by researchers, as well as authors of papers (in scientific journals, books and other formats that promote knowledge), well as reviewers. In this regard, it should be noted that there are various categories of prizes. In this case, the prize has been awarded for authorship of a research work that received the mention of “Highly Commended Paper”. This means that Mourelle’s article, entitled “Education and economic growth: an empirical analysis of nonlinearities”, is considered one of the most outstanding publications of 2019. 

Awards without call

For these awards, there is not a call for applications from research staff. It is the editors of the journals who make the choice of articles among those published during each year in journals and books of the Emerald publishing group. The article by the ECOBAS researcher was published in an indexed journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Social Science Citation Index, which is part of the Emerald Group.

In addition to the prestige and visibility of this award, the Emerald Group offers many ways to spread the recognition as a Facebook to that effect, or the use of an accredited logo.

Education and economic growth

The selected article tries to show if there is a relationship between the educational level of a country and its economic growth. “The authors, Laura Márquez-Ramos and I, focused the study on the case of Spain at an aggregate and disaggregated level (autonomous communities), with the aim of detecting whether the education of the population has a significant impact on the economic activity of the country. The particularity of the work is to use non-linear time series models with the aim of exploring whether there are thresholds in the educational level, so that overcoming them or being below them has different implications for economic growth. The work is focused on my line of research, which is the application of non-linear models (in particular, time series) to economic phenomena. Although I usually apply them to macroeconomic variables, in this paper we wanted to explore how they behave when they are applied to other areas, such as education, where we do not have a tradition of using these models”, says the researcher.

Effort and work that is rewarded

“I did not expect the award at all. It was a great surprise when the Emerald Group informed us of the decision, indicating that the article was, in the opinion of the editorial team, one of the most exceptional that they saw throughout 2019. Without a doubt, it is a strong personal and professional satisfaction, since it is not usual to receive mentions in the field of research. Although the award refers to a particular work, I understand it as a recognition both of the line of research in which I mainly focus my efforts, as well as the fruit of collaboration with other authors, without a doubt an impulse to my research career”, says the doctor.

Research, a continuous work

“I am constantly researching and I plan to continue developing work along the lines in which I am most specialized, which is the application of statistical-econometric techniques for the analysis of economic phenomena where time plays an essential role. In particular, I continue to explore the application of non-linear time series models to areas of the economy where their use is not traditional, such as education and sustainable development (two areas of interest to me), because I think they have enormous potential. I have also worked and I am working on projects related to the study of economic (and economic-business) phenomena in which I provide other types of methodologies, to be more suitable; with this I also stimulate continuous learning, which is fundamental to the investigation”, explains Dr Mourelle.