01. 07. 2022 closing ceremony of the academic year 2021 - 2022 centro de estudios monetarios y financieros ( cemfi ) pablo hernandez de cos governor good afternoon rector and colleagues. and good afternoon class of 2022. it is a pleasure for me to participate in this graduation ceremony together with carlos andradas, rector of the universidad internacional menendez pelayo, and rafael repullo, director of the cemfi. i would especially like to thank carlos andradas for being here today. as you know the main activity of the universidad internacional menendez pelayo takes place in the summer in the delightful, charming and vibrant city of santander ( you can take this description at face value, with no need to apply a haircut due to my own origins in the region ). so i greatly appreciate his coming to madrid to participate in this graduation ceremony. the partnership of the cemfi with the universidad internacional menendez pelayo, dating back to 2006, has been instrumental in improving our ability to attract first - rate students and the quality of our graduate programme, and i am very grateful for this. our society needs this constant drive for excellence, especially in the present circumstances. these are difficult times. following the covid - 19 pandemic and its economic consequences, the russian invasion of ukraine last february has provided a further negative shock, heightening uncertainty and worsening inflationary pressures and growth prospects. this is a particularly challenging environment for economic policy. to address current structural and cyclical challenges we need to rely on the analysis and advice of well - trained economists whether they are in the academia, in the public administration, central banks or the private sector. this is why it is so important to have academic institutions like cemfi, that produce groundbreaking research and invest heavily in boosting the single most important determinant of economic growth : human capital. students of the class of 2022, what you take from here – your knowledge and the tools needed to analyse and understand reality – is the accumulated capital stemming from what is probably the most important investment you will make in your whole life. you have invested your time and effort. and the yield on this investment will be a wide array of opportunities. but, above all, this human capital you now possess is something that nobody can take away from you. it will accompany you everywhere you go and you can apply it in every endeavour you may undertake.

of course, students ’ reliance on debt and the returns from graduating vary across educational institutions. of particular interest here is recent work by raj chetty and his co - authors showing that some colleges — some of which can be found in the cuny and california state systems — appear to be much better at fostering economic mobility than others. in other words, they accept relatively large numbers of lower - income students while also producing large numbers of high earners, which means that these institutions facilitate considerable upward mobility. learning exactly how they do it and how it can be replicated strikes me as a first - order question for further study. recent research by caroline hoxby to assess differences in productivity across educational institutions makes important progress in that direction. in summary, academic research on the financing, costs, and returns of higher education is more important now than it has ever been. we are pleased to have many of those researchers participating in this conference. i would like to thank raji chakrabarti and wilbert van der klaauw and the new york fed ’ s research group for organizing this timely conference, and for bringing together this superb group of scholars. thank you all for your participation. i wish you a very productive and enjoyable conference. 1 betsy bourassa, rajashri chakrabarti, andrew haughwout, and wilbert van der klaauw assisted in preparing these remarks. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches