Congratulations to Eugenia Frezza, PhD candidate in the Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, who has won the inaugural ISWE Prize for Best Paper by a Woman Economist, presented at the 35th Annual Conference of the Irish Economic Association in May 2022. The Irish Society for Women in Economics (ISWE) established the prize to recognise outstanding research contributions by women economists, with this first award sponsored by the IEA.
Frezza's prize-winning paper, "Fast Internet and Gender Norms: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," investigates whether the arrival of high-speed internet connectivity affects attitudes toward the acceptability of domestic violence in the region. Her findings reveal that, contrary to optimistic assumptions about the internet as a tool for social progress, fast internet access is associated with more regressive gender norms in connected areas, with individuals there more likely to find intimate partner violence justifiable — an effect that is particularly pronounced among men.
The research sits at the intersection of development and gender economics, fields that form the core of Frezza's broader PhD work, which also examines the impact of resource windfalls on education and labour supply. Frezza is an Irish Research Council Scholar and holds a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Bologna. The School extends its warmest congratulations to Eugenia on this richly deserved recognition.