Congratulations to Dr Felix Koenig on winning the 2020 Young Labour Economist Prize from the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE).

The prize was awarded for his CEP discussion paper: Technical Change and Superstar Effects: Evidence from the roll-out of television.

The prize jury described the paper as very innovative saying that it uses the launch of television as a natural experiment for studying superstar effects in the entertainment sector.

The jury said: “The data collection effort, knowledge of the industry and the historical context is very impressive. The identification strategy is very clear and has a strong underlying framework.

“The findings show that the increase in production scalability has profound effects on inequality. In this setting, the share of income going to the top 1% nearly doubles, whereas many workers further down the ‘talent distribution’ end up out of work.

“In this original, well-written paper, Felix shows how great scholarship can contribute to understanding of important contemporary issues.”

Dr Koenig is a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and an incoming assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an associate of the CEP Labour Markets programme.