The 2025 Socio-Economic Review (SER) best paper prize jury (Elsa Clara Massoc, chair, with Matthias Thiemann and Leonard Seabrooke) found it very difficult to choose a prize winner this year, given the high quality of SER contributions overall.

They were tasked with looking at the
60-odd papers published in SER in 2024. In the end, they chose to give the prize to two excellent papers. Indeed, both are impressive by their theoretical, empirical and data contributions, in two different fields that are of importance to SER: political economy and the
sociology of elites.

The winners are:
● Voss, D. (2024). Sectors versus borders: interest group cleavages and struggles over corporate governance in the age of asset management. Socio-Economic Review, 22(3), 1071-1094.
● O’Brien, S. (2024). The family web: Multigenerational class persistence in elite populations. Socio-Economic Review, 22(1), 1-27.

Honorable mention:
● Murau, S., & Giordano, M. (2024). Forging monetary unification through novation: the TARGET system and the politics of central banking in Europe. Socio-Economic Review, 22(3), 1283-1312.

They were impressed by Dustin Voss’ contribution, “Sectors versus borders: interest group cleavages and struggles over corporate governance in the age of asset management”, for its timely and useful contribution to the fields of international and comparative political economy
(IPE and CPE). Voss’ research allows us to better understand the power relations between global asset managers and domestic institutions of corporate governance, building on a smart leveraging of rare data revealing coalitional dynamics between financial and non-financial corporate actors, and developing a theoretical perspective that enlightens CPE/IPE dynamics in the case of Germany and beyond.

Shay O’Brien’s paper, “The family web: Multigenerational class persistence in elite populations”, is remarkable for its excellent empirical and theoretical contributions to the field of the sociology of elites. Her research allows us to clearly grasp the mechanisms of elite reproduction in the long-run, building on a very impressive collection of original data revealing that the continuity of the elite must be understood as webs rather than dynasties, and developing a theoretical perspective that will enlighten the sociology of elites in the case of the USA and beyond.

The paper that was selected for an honorable mention, “Forging monetary unification through novation: the TARGET system and the politics of central banking in Europe”, by Murau and Giordano, makes a profound contribution to the study of the international political economy of central banking and critical macro-finance. Their research allows us to comprehend the
changing role of the ECB, building on a detailed political economy account of the role that the TARGET and TARGET2 systems have played for European monetary unification, and developing a balance-sheet based perspective that enlightens the growing power of the ECB and well as the evolution of the eurosystem.

The jury congratulates the winners, and SASE is proud of the contribution all Socio-Economic Review authors are making!