The 2026 Vilfredo Pareto Prize for the best doctoral thesis in economics has gone to Filipe Bento Caires. He received the award, presented annually by the EUI Department of Economics, at the EUI Conferring Ceremony on 19 June 2026.
Filipe Bento Caires defended his thesis, ‘Essays on Public Policy in Labour and Procurement Markets’, at the EUI Department of Economics in June 2026. The thesis comprises three essays that examine how policy interventions in labour and procurement markets alter the incentives of firms, workers, and public institutions, and how their responses to the reforms shape broader economic outcomes.
"In my thesis, I study public policies beyond their direct effects. Across three essays, I examine three reforms: the minimum wage, a reform to strengthen competition in public procurement, and a compulsory schooling reform. In each, I look past the policy's intended target. Rather than minimum wage workers, I study how company wage policies shape whether and how the minimum wage affects the broader wage distribution. Rather than competition itself, I examine how public authorities preserve discretion within the new rules. Rather than educational attainment, I trace the consequences for firms and labour markets that relied on teenage employment.’’
Reflecting on his work and its objectives, Caires said: "Throughout my work, I draw on administrative records from Portugal and apply microeconometric techniques to learn as much as I can from these data. My aim was, and still is, to bring rigorous, credible evidence to the debate on what public policies actually do.”
The jury statement praised the thesis for the strength and consistency of its contributions across all three chapters. “Each chapter of Filipe Caires’ dissertation makes an important contribution to the relevant scientific literature. The work is largely empirical but well-motivated by economic theory. The empirical work uses rich employee-employer-matched data and detailed administrative data, along with state-of-the-art econometric methods. The analysis has been carefully and professionally executed, and the thesis is of the highest quality.”
The Vilfredo Pareto Prize is awarded annually for the best EUI doctoral thesis in economics. Established by the EUI Department of Economics, the prize honours Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher who lived and worked in Florence and Fiesole between 1882 and 1892 and is considered one of the pioneers of modern scientific research in economics.
Read the interview where Filipe Bento Caires sheds light on the so-called ‘spillover effect’ of the minimum wage, meaning how raising the minimum wage leads to salary increases also for workers not targeted by the policy, its link to the organisation of firms, and its consequences for salary inequalities among workers.