Donations

Alf Vanags (1942–2016) memorial lectures is an annual event. We used part of donations to organize Alf Vanags memorial lectures by:

• Francis Kramarz (CREST-ENSAE), in June 2019;
• John Broome (Oxford University) in May, 2018;
• Charles Chinedu Okeahalam (AGH Capital) and Erik Berglöf (LSE Institute of Global Affairs (IGA)) in May, 2017.

In 2018 donations have been used to finance a special Alf Vanags scholarship awarded to the best performing students within the course that Alf used to teach at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.

In 2018 donations have been also used to publish the monograph “Competitiveness of Latvian Enterprises in External Markets” in memory of Alf Vanags.  This monograph is a joint work of BICEPS researchers and SSE Riga graduates completed within the State Research Programme SUSTINNO project in the period 2014-2018.

The main objective of the monograph is to better understand the factors that promote exporting of the Latvian enterprises, as well as barriers that firms may face when entering export markets. The monograph consists of two parts. The first part examines similarities and differences between exporters and non-exporters and evaluates factors that affect firms’ propensity to export, with a particular focus on the role of EU fund investments and tax evasion. The second part provides a more general analysis of determinants of efficiency and competitiveness of the Latvian enterprises.