Statement. Marlehn Thieme. Deutsche Bank AG. on the announcement of the first prizewinner of the. Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics

Transcription

1 Statement Marlehn Thieme Deutsche Bank AG on the announcement of the first prizewinner of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics in Frankfurt on April 28, 2005 (Check against delivery)

2 - 2 - Professor Krahnen, ladies and gentlemen from the media, The first winner of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics has been announced. On behalf of Deutsche Bank s entire Board of Managing Directors, I have the honour of congratulating Professor Eugene Fama on this award. In his speech, Professor Krahnen has already acknowledged the scientific achievements of Professor Fama, so I will not mention them again here. Instead, I believe it is important to present the objectives Deutsche Bank hopes to achieve with this newly created prize and the reasons why we have decided to support this award. The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, we believe, is an important contribution to, and a milestone in, the discussion on Germany as a financial center. It is also a bridge to the financial markets in which we are active as a global financial services provider. In the financial center London, Deutsche Bank supports, for example, to the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics. Our commitment to the financial center Frankfurt even has a much longer tradition a commitment to further developing the expertise in research and science already present in Frankfurt. The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics is part of our contribution to the initiative "Finanzplatz Frankfurt". In 2003, the Board of Managing Directors of Deutsche Bank already resolved to invest a total of EUR 5 million for the development of research and teaching at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. As part of the "House of Finance" there, we are providing funds for a guest professor at the Center for Law and Finance as well as the development and structuring of an executive MBA program for the Goethe Business School Frankfurt (which, by the way, recently received its accreditation). Furthermore, the bank provides support to the Center for Financial Studies, an internationally renowned institute that conducts internationally networked research in all of the relevant financial market sciences.

3 - 3 - However, the impulses created from these activities must remain closed off to be studied in the confinement of private dens. On the contrary, considering the financial markets high degree of networking, we consider it especially important to bring this international research into contact with applied practices and the people working in the finance industry: research, knowledge in financial economics, risks and best practices from around the world must be discussed with bankers, brokers, politicians, regulators and central bankers, both here in Frankfurt and internationally. Only then can these ideas be taken out of the laboratory and implemented. For this, people must come together, not just virtually, but also in reality. And this cannot be a one-way street. Ideally, this should be an active, reciprocal exchange of ideas, with lively points of contact that have learned to think and understand in terms of all the continents, not just in financial theory, but also in applied market practices. This dialogue is what makes for a lively financial center that can also generate sustainable innovation. In this context, the awarding of a prize is an instrument that has proven itself in other scientific disciplines and has been very successful. There are many awards out there, but when it comes to financial economics, this is not the case. Here, the number of awards, as well as their importance and recognition in Germany and around the world, is rather limited. What is usual in medicine, technology, chemistry even in mechanical engineering is less developed in financial economics. Although everyone knows of the Nobel Prize for Economics, other renowned prizes around the world can be counted both hands at the most. For this reason, we were pleased to take up the suggestion of the Center for Financial Studies to use the weight and global presence of Deutsche Bank to network financial economics research and the finance industry with the help of such a prize, just as the international financial markets and financial economics are networked globally and in fact base on each other. And with this common objective in mind, to thus also strengthen Frankfurt as a financial center and center of research in Financial Economics.

4 - 4 - Besides the funding for the prize from the Deutsche Bank Donation Fund in the Donors Association for German Science, we are contributing the most important thing that we have as a bank: our name. Consequently, the prize is endowed with the worldwide renown of our bank and our contacts in the financial markets. Another criterion essential for the success of the prize is that the jury has the scientific freedom to select the Deutsche Bank prizewinner. As the first prize winner just announced is truly an outstanding selection, I am confident that this prize will be able to establish its own reputation based on the prestige of its prizewinners. Considering his focus on applied practices, I am confident this prizewinner will bring us a good deal closer to our objective the international networking of Financial Economics with the financial markets. The academic symposium scheduled to coincide with the award ceremony of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics on October 6, 2005, here in Frankfurt, will take on an important function for this exchange. It will be a symposium that has never been seen in this form before, and one that will fill the gap just described in the highly specialized, demanding dialogue between experts, international partners in the financial markets, financial economics, politics and financial market supervision. Deutsche Bank will thus show that, as a company with global operations, it is committed to international networking and communicating the importance of Frankfurt as a financial center. This also means, by the way, that we are continuing a good tradition of the people of Frankfurt, who founded "their" university as a private initiative within the Prussian state. As part of our commitment to society and the Deutsche Bank Donation Fund, the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics represents a new milestone. The Fund, established in 1970, annually disburses approximately EUR 5 million in grants for research and science. Support for academic research is an important pillar of our commitment to society. But this is not solely about investing more funds in the German scientific research industry. On the contrary, it is much more important to organize team-oriented, interdisciplinary, networked and practice-relevant research and teaching through

5 - 5 - structural changes, as young and internationally experienced professors are seeking to do here in Frankfurt, and to facilitate the establishment of new partnerships between universities. And this approach forms the basis of our university cooperations: in Berlin with the European School of Management and Technology, in Hamburg with the Bucerius Law School, in Frankfurt with Goethe University and the Center for Financial Studies and the E-Finance Lab, a cooperation between the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the University of Darmstadt. Before concluding my remarks, I would like to clearly present how we see the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics: the prize is intended to be an international beacon for Frankfurt as an important center of financial and research activity, it should attract those who orient themselves globally as financial experts, bankers and researchers alike, it should reach out to top people, and, thanks to its educational approach, it should motivate the leaders of tomorrow. Thank you very much.