2021 SUMMER MEETINGS AND SCHOOLS NEWS
ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY NEWS: 2021 SUMMER MEETINGS AND SCHOOLS
As our second challenging summer comes to a close, we are proud to report that between May 25, 2021 and August 27, 2021, the Econometric Society hosted six virtual meetings (one of which was hybrid), and three virtual schools (two of which were hybrid), reaching five continents and more than 3,000 total participants. We are also pleased to note that despite COVID, we saw record participation numbers for the majority of our regional meetings and schools.
All summer meetings and schools were originally planned as in-person gatherings, but the continuously evolving COVID pandemic forced us to change our original plans. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the many people whose work and dedication allowed the Society to offer its summer programs throughout the world despite the continued difficulties brought on by COVID. We commend every one of the program chairs, local organizers, academic hosts, contributed and invited presenters, student helpers, and all of the others required to make these events flourish and we acknowledge how difficult it has been in these trying times to navigate new mediums of communication and new processes during a time of constant uncertainty.
At the beginning of the summer, we reported on our early June Africa meeting and school (https://www.econometricsociety.org/content/congratulations-organizers-2021-african-meetings-econometric-society). We once again thank those involved with the Africa Meeting and the separate African School, both hosted by Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée (ENSEA), Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire with special thanks to program chairs Prosper Dovonon (Concordia University) and Ismael Mourifié (University of Toronto) and local organizers, in particular Hugues Kouadio (ENSEA).
The North America Summer Meeting, hosted by Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Montreal, Canada, took place in early June. Special thanks go to program chair Sílvia Gonçalves (McGill University), program area coordinators Fabian Lange (McGill University), Benoit Perron (Université de Montréal), Theodore Papageorgiou (Boston College), René Garcia (Université de Montréal), Rui Castro (McGill University), and Rohan Dutta (McGill University), host local organizers Alain Guay and Dalibor Stevanovic, the North America Regional Standing Committee, its Secretary, Jeff Eli (Northwestern), Sharon Brewer who handled administrative tasks efficiently and without complaint, and Ritu Johorey who assisted NASM organizers and those from several other meetings with technical assistance. The NASM accepted 490 contributed papers and had between 17 and 18 parallel sessions.
We thank those who so aptly executed the Asia Meeting, hosted by Curtin University Malaysia. Special recognition goes to program co-chairs Yongmiao Hong (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Hanming Fang (University of Pennsylvania), the exceptional program committee, local organizing chair Changyong Zhang and the local organizing committee, the advisory committee lead by Cheng Hsiao (University of Southern California), and the Chair and Secretary of the Asian Regional Standing Committee respectively, Dilip Mookherjee (Boston University) and Atsushi Kajii (Kwansei Gakuin University). In particular we thank Atsushi Kajii for his tremendous service to the Society as chair and secretary as he steps down and we congratulate newly appointed Secretary Changyong Zhang (Curtin University Malaysia). Asia chairs accepted 470 contributed papers organized into 118 sections and presented nine keynote speakers.
The China Meeting of the Econometric Society took place in early July hosted by ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. Special thanks go to our program chairs who assembled a very stimulating program: Hanming Fang (University of Pennsylvania), Qingmin Liu (Columbia University) and Michael Song (Chinese University of Hong Kong) who all worked closely with an excellent program committee. We must thank the local organizing committee, Professors Yi Chen, Yvonne Chen, Ming Guo and Ding Lu, the dedicated staff, particularly Yamei Sun and Shuyan Zhou, as well as other faculty members and student volunteers at the School of Entrepreneurship and Management for their considerable energy and commitment to this meeting. China meeting chairs accepted 688 papers to bring us a contributed program of 120 sessions in addition to nine keynote lectures by distinguished scholars (including Jim Heckman and Xiaohong Chen).
The annual Australasian meeting also took place in early July, hosted by the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne, Australia who receive special thanks for absorbing some of the meeting costs. We thank Chris Edmond and Chris Skeels who each took on the roles of program chair and local organizer, planning and executing an exciting and stimulating program. Special thanks go to Jen Lucas, Imogen Knight, Dandapani Lokanathan, Ti Hinh, and the Departmental Manager Marlene Mannays. Thanks go too to the program committee, especially Bruce Preston, Jenny Williams, and Steve Williams, who acted as excellent area team leaders. The chairs accepted 211 papers for presentation out of the 476 original submissions and assembled 70 parallel sessions. Finally, we would like to thank the Australasian Regional Standing Committee chaired by Michael Keane and its Secretary, Chris Skeels, who retired and will step down this year after many years of service to the Society. We wish him well.
Our last meeting of the summer took place late August in partnership with the European Economic Association and hosted by the University of Copenhagen. As usual, we had wonderful and dedicated program chairs and a committed local organizing team of Mette Ejrnaes, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Joanna Hagstrom, Christian Schultz, and Peter Norman Sorensen. We are most grateful to the program chairs, Aureo de Paula (University College London) and Jan Eeckhout (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona) who put together a varied and interesting program. We also thank the EEA’s Gemma Prunner-Thomas who, for many years, has helped organize the EEA-ESEM meeting. We thank too all of the area-coordinators and graders whose work was fundamental to putting together the contributed session program. Finally, we thank our European Regional Standing Committee, chaired by the Society’s incoming President Guido Tabellini with Secretary Sven Rady and treasurer Olivier Scaillet. All told, the EEA-ESEM received 823 submitted papers, accepted 474, registered 449, and created 108 sessions for presentation over five days.
In between the academic meetings, a growing cadre of schools welcomed economics students across several disciplines. We were pleased to hold three schools over the summer, all of which managed to hold hybrid meetings, welcoming students in-person and virtually.
In addition to the African Region school discussed above, we would like to thank the organizers of the Asian Summer School in Econometrics and Statistics, held mid-July in Beijing, China by the Center for Forecasting Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-organized by Gregory and Paula Chow Center for Economic Research, Xiamen University, and School of Economics, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics. Special thanks go to Yongmiao Hong (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) who initiated the Summer School in Econometrics and Statistics in 2005 and has been instrumental in carrying it forward. This year’s summer school provided 360 hours of academic lectures and workshops. The final number of participants was 183, with 93 onsite and 90 online.
In mid-August, the University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany, hosted the Econometric Society Summer School in Dynamic Structural Econometrics (DSE) addressing household decision making and human capital in life-cycle models. We want to thank 2021 DSE organizers Philipp Eisenhauer, Hans-Martin von Gaudecker, and David Koll, the DSE Core organizing committee of Fedor Iskhakov, John Rust, and Bertel Schjerning, and of course the lecturers and speakers at the conference. There were a total of 35 onsite summer school students, and 137 online registered students for the conference with 47 onsite participants (speakers and audience members including onsite students) and 137 online participants. The conference ended up with 10 sessions and 22 papers over two days.
Once again, we are grateful to our academic hosts, program chairs, local organizers, contributed and invited presenters, student helpers, our technical partners including ATIV, Conference Maker, EEAFlix, Oxford Abstracts, and all of the others required to make these events flourish. We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming Winter meetings and schools and hopefully in person at our 2022 summer meetings.
PENNY GOLDBERG
PRESIDENT