INET Oxford MSCA Postdoctoral Research Fellow Christian Diem has won the 2024 Stephan Koren Award for his ground-breaking research into shock propagation and systemic risk in production and financial exposure networks.
The award, presented today at the Festsaal WU in Vienna, recognises a body of work that made up Dr Diem's dissertation at the Complexity Science Hub, including three important papers. His research focuses on systemic risks and the ripple effects of economic shocks in supply and financial networks. Through a combination of economics, network science, and agent-based simulations, he sheds light on how disruptions in firm-level production networks spread—and how these insights can improve economic modelling.
Highlights of the dissertation include:
- Quantifying how much systemic risk can be eliminated in financial contract networks, by applying a new optimization procedure to 10 snapshots of the Austrian interbank market.
- Showing that the economic systemic risk SR of some extremely risky companies can be reduced by introducing supply chain redundancies and changes in the network topology.
- Estimating the reaction of economies to political interventions or external disturbances.
Complexity Economics Programme Deputy Director François Lafond said:
"Christian has produced world-leading research on economic and financial systemic risk throughout his PhD. This award recognises his innovativeness, consistency, and potential.
"At INET Oxford, we are proud that he has chosen us for his postdoctoral fellowship, and we are looking forward to supporting his agenda on the dynamics of supply networks."
Background information
Each year, the Full Professors’ Association of the Vienna University of Economics and Business awards the Stephan Koren-Prize in the course of an academic ceremony.
The purpose of this award is to support the new generation of academics at Vienna University of Economics and Business. It is awarded to doctoral candidates who, on the basis of their dissertation and their entire course of studies, have made a contribution to maintaining the high reputation of dissertations prepared at Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Christian Diem's Dissertation publications
About Christian Diem
Christian Diem is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at INET Oxford and the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment. In his MSCA project – funded by UKRI – he investigates how shocks in firm-level production networks propagate empirically and how the resulting empirical estimates can improve the performance of economic simulation models.
He aims to better understand economic and financial systems with tools from economics, network science, and agent-based computer simulations. His work ranges from quantifying systemic risk in large-scale firm-level supply networks, reconstructing the Austrian food supply chain network, extending financial stress testing to include supply chain effects, and optimally rewiring interbank networks to reduce systemic risk.
Christian's research has been featured on national TV, radio and major news papers in Austria. He is one of the lead organisers of the firmnets interdisciplinary workshop series on firm-level supply networks (https://firmnets2022.csh.ac.at). He acquired and contributed to projects funded by UKRI, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) and the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF).
Christian holds a master’s degree in Quantitative Finance and a PhD in Economics and Social Sciences both from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Previously he was a Senior Scientist in the Network Economics, Supply Chains & Financial Markets Group at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna and worked in policy projects with the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
