The 2015 ULI UK Academic prize, awarded in partnership with The Journal of Economic Geography (JOEG) and Oxford University Press, has been awarded to Professor Nathan Schiff, School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics for his paper on ‘Cities and Product Variety: Evidence from Restaurants’.

The ULI UK Academic prize, of £5,000, is awarded annually to the author(s) of the best JOEG paper published online in the previous year, to enhance collaborative links between the commercial and academic worlds.

The winner is decided by a committee comprising two members of the JOEG Advisory Board and one member nominated by the ULI.  Submitted papers are refereed, and are evaluated on the basis of their creativity, quality of scholarship, and contribution to advancing understanding of the geographic nature of economic systems and global economic change.

This year’s jury comprised:

• Gordon Clark, University of Oxford, UK
• Masahisa Fujita, Kyoto University, Japan
• Neil Wrigley, University of Southampton, UK
• Paul Cheshire, London School of Economics, UK

The jury commended the winning paper for ‘Its theoretical sophistication, the nature and scope of the empirical analysis, and for the implications derived thereof.  It promises to be a paper that sets the scene for a decade to come, and is a high bar indeed for other scholars to reach and surpass’.
Professor Nathan Schiff will be presented with a certificate and prize at a special event hosted by ULI at Shanghai University on 22nd March 2016.

Please click here for a copy of Professor Schiff’s winning paper.