Professor Paul Frijters
Date: 01 October 2009
Professor Paul Frijters of QUT's School of Economics and Finance was named the Best Australian Economist under 40 by the Australian Economic Society earlier this week.
The prestigious award is handed out once every two years, and Professor Frijters is the second recipient. He was judged the winner after details about his career had been seen by a wide range of economists throughout the country.
"It feels great to receive this, particularly as these people are my peers, so it is really very nice to give me this sort of honour," Professor Frijters said.
"I also really love still being referred to as 'young'!"
Professor Frijters said the award was based upon a review of his entire career so far, including academic output, as well as his contribution to the progress made by QUT as a renowned research institute over the past few years.
"The progress made here at QUT has just been tremendous - we have gone from being quite small when it comes to research to being amongst the top five or six economic outfits in the country," he said.
Professor Frijters has revamped education in the economics faculty and been part of a team who produced a new textbook now used in a number of Australian universities.
His own research has covered a wide range of subject areas, and his work on the economics of happiness has received wide coverage.
At the awards night, he presented some of his latest research, surrounding the Chinese economy - Professor Frijters said he believed China would have the world's biggest economy within 10 years, fuelled to a large extent by workforce migration within the country.
"The project in China is just huge, there are a lot of organisations involved and we are following around 20,000 people," he said.
"What we are finding is that people come from the country to the cities to make money, and work like dogs for long hours and low pay, thus fuelling the economy.
"They are not as poor as they would be had they stayed in the country, but they are exploited and it can't really continue."
Other research Professor Frijters has completed during his career includes macro-economics, labour economics, the underlying forces behind the global economic crisis, mental health of children, obesity and a wide array of other social issues.
"I am a bit of a jack-of-all trades," he said.
Professor Frijters' presentation and paper can be found at http://www.bus.qut.edu.au/paulfrijters/.
Media contact: Sharon Thompson, QUT media officer - 3138 449 4or sharon.thompson@qut.edu.au
**Hi-res pic available for media
Content sourced from QUT News Web Service.