Josep Oliu, Chairman of Banco Sabadell, has awarded the XVI Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Economic Research to Dr Mar Reguant for her work in the field of research on the energy economy and the environment.

The award ceremony was held at the headquarters of SabadellHerrero in Oviedo, and it was attended by professionals in the economic sector, as well as political representatives, such as Javier Fernández, Chairman of the Principado de Asturias.

The award, which consists of 30,000 euros of prize money, aims to recognise the work carried out by young researchers in the fields of economic, corporate-legal and social knowledge.

More information about the award winner

Dr Reguant has a degree in Economics from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and a PhD in Economics from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and she was a professor at Stanford University. She is currently a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

She has studied the functioning of auctions in electricity markets from a theoretical and empirical perspective. In these auctions different companies aim to sell their electricity at different prices. Dr Reguant has adopted a theoretical and empirical perspective to study the role of auctions in electricity markets, in which various companies offer their available electrical capacity at different prices. Furthermore, she has contributed to the research into these markets by introducing key aspects into her analysis including the different costs in terms of time associated with switching on and starting up the power plants.

She has also developed a successful line of research in terms of environmental economics. In particular, she has studied the carbon dioxide emissions market, comparing different mechanisms to reduce pollution. Her research shows that competition policies increase the efficiency of environmental policies.