Nigerian wins Adam Smith prize for PhD excellence

Dr Babatunde Omotosho, an alumnus of the University of Ilorin (Unilorin), has won the 2021 Adam Smith Business School Prize for PhD Excellence in Economics. This was contained in the Unilorin Bulletin Tuesday edition.

Omotosho, who is currently an Assistant Director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently completed his PhD studies at the University of Glasgow under CBN sponsorship. His winning thesis is titled: ‘Oil Price Shocks and Macroeconomic Policy in Resource-rich Emerging Economies.’

The prize is in memory of Adam Smith, fondly acknowledged as the father of modern economics. Smith lectured at the University of Glasgow and was appointed a professor in 1751.

Omotosho won the prize based on the excellence of his PhD thesis and the significance of its contribution to the field of economics. Some of his findings have been published in high-ranking journals, including the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control published by Elsevier.

Others were in Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies published by Taylor and Francis, West African Journal of Monetary and Economic Integration, and the CBN Journal of Applied Statistics.

The University of Glasgow is ranked among the top 100 universities in the world by Times Higher Education. In 2021, it ranked 92nd in the world and 11th in the United Kingdom.

Omotosho graduated from the Department of Economics, Unilorin, in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and was the best graduating student in his class. He later obtained a Master’s degree in Economics in 2008 from the University of Benin and completed a second Master’s degree in Applied Statistics and Data Mining from the University of St Andrews, United Kingdom in 2011.

Omotosho commended Unilorin for “giving him a solid foundation in economics and being part of his success story.”

He expressed optimism that the award would encourage undergraduate students of the Department of Economics to imbibe Unilorin’s values of excellence and hard work.