27 June 2012

More than 200 economic theorists across the world will attend next week’s major economic conference in Australia.

The University of Queensland (UQ) School of Economics will co-host the 12th Society for The Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Conference in Brisbane from June 30 to July 3.

Co-host, Society for The Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) is the largest and most prestigious scholarly society exclusively in the area of economic theory.

SAET 2012 will see the largest group of economic experts converge in Australia.

Some attendees and speakers are among the world’s leading economic theorists, including a Harvard University economics professor.

Its 2012 conference, at UQ’s St Lucia campus, features exciting plenary lectures by Alvin Roth (Harvard University), Stephen Morris (Princeton University), Herakles Polemarchakis (University of Warwick, UK) and Timothy Kehoe (University of Minnesota).

Harvard Economics and Business Administration Professor Alvin Roth will speak about the Program for Kidney Exchange, he founded.

The program uses ingenious ideas from the economic theory of consumer and producer matching.

Professor Roth has made big contributions to the fields of game theory, market design and experimental economics.

Princeton University’s economic theory centre director and economics expert Professor Stephen Morris, will explain the idea of “robustness”, underlying the equilibrium notions in strategic games when different people have different information.

Renowned American economist and Economics Professor at the University of Minnesota Timothy Kehoe brings his considerable experience as an adviser to countries in the European Union to his keynote address on the European financial crisis.

In his plenary lecture, Herakles Polemarchakis, who works in economic theory and specialising in economic policy at the University of Warwick will talk about how rational investors can get it horribly wrong (and wonderfully right).

A host of other distinguished, high profile speakers contributing to the conference are: Professors Charlie Plott and John Ledyard (California Institute of Technology), Aloisio Araujo (IMPA and FGV), George Mailath (University of Pennsylvania), Myrna Wooders (Vanderbilt University), David Martimort (Paris School of Economics) and Eduardo Engel (Yale University).

Professor Flavio Menezes, co-chair of the Program committee for SAET 2012, has worked with a large volunteer team of talented academics from the School of Economics to bring the SAET conference to Australia for the first time.

Organisational Committee co-chair Professor Rabee Tourky said UQ was privileged to host such a prestigious event.

“As a UQ Alumni, I doubt anyone over the last 10 to 20 years could have imagined UQ hosting such a respected gathering of the world’s economic theorists,” said Professor Tourky.

“I am grateful to everyone who contributed considerable time and effort to the successful planning of SAET 2012. This conference speaks to the energy and the community spirit of the School of Economics.”

Professor Flavio Menezes said not only was Australia an emerging powerhouse in the area of economic theory, UQ was home to the best of Australia's theorists.

“And we are proud to host such a distinguished group of scholars, which undoubtedly includes potential future Nobel prize winners, editors and former editors of the world's leading economics journals, and the very best junior scholars from all over the world,” Professor Menezes said.

“I am confident this will be one of the best SAET conferences ever."

SAET 2012 also will feature an open panel discussion on What Economic Theory Can Tell Us About the Global Financial Crisis.

On the panel is UQ's John Quiggin, Professor of Economics and author of the highly successful book, Zombie Economics, who will impress upon this gathering of the world's leading theorists that the appropriate title for discussion should actually be – "What Can the GFC Tell Us About Economic Theory?".

Earlier this week, the UQ School of Economics recorded another Australian first when it co-hosted, with the Association for Public Economic Theory, the 2012 APET Workshop on Public and Private Partnerships.

Media: Manager, Marketing and International Relations Louise West: 07 3365 4482 or louise.west@uq.edu.au