Dear friends and colleagues,

Last year we published a record 36 excellent research papers in our BOFIT DP series. We have now asked the Bofit team to nominate the Best DP of 2011. Our aim was not to find the paper that is most likely to be published in a top economics journal, but rather to stress the fact that a good research paper may also be policy-relevant and relatively easily accessible.

The jury was asked to name up to three papers that satisfy the following two criteria:

  • The paper is reader-friendly and well written.
  • You learned something genuinely new from reading it.

Four excellent and insightful papers received an equal number of votes ensuring we have FOUR Best BOFIT DPs in 2011! All of these papers are unique either in the data or the methodology used, and they all offer important implications for economic policy.

We are therefore proud to announce that the ‘Best Bofit DP of 2011’ are:

Our congratulations to all the winners!

We hope that you will enjoy reading these Discussion Papers and find them useful and inspiring in your own work.

Bofit team