We proudly inform you that the winners of the 4th Aareal Award of Excellence in Real Estate Research 2011 are:

Master-/Bachelor-/Diploma Thesis

The winner in the category "Master-/Bachelor-/Diploma Thesis" is Vanessa Kozik for her bachelor thesis on "An Evaluation of Forecast Bias in Analysts Earnings Estimates of U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS)".

Vanessa Kozik has completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Business Management at Imperial College London with First Class Honours before joining UBS Investment Bank as a financial analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions division. She then gained her Master’s degree in Real Estate Finance at the University of Cambridge and is currently working as an Associate Manager in Consumer & Market Knowledge at Procter & Gamble.

Research paper

The winner in the category "Research paper" is Min Hwang for his paper on "Mortage Contract Choice in Subprime Mortage Markets".

The winner is an associate professor of finance and real estate at George Washington University and currently engaged in several mortgage related projects. He received his B.A. from Yonsei University in Korea, and his Ph.D. in economics from University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on real estate finance, mortgage, urban economics, and asset pricing.

Dissertation

For the third category "Dissertation" the winner is Xun Bian for his dissertation on "Bad Barrowers or Bad Loans? The Effect of Information Asymmetry on the Choice of Prepayment Penalty".

The winner is a Ph.D candidate in the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining the Ph.D programme in real estate, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in mathematics from Illinois Wesleyan University. His research interests include issues related to real estate capital markets, corporate finance and household finance. He will join Longwood University as an Assistant Professor of Finance in 2011.