Conniffe and Norvartis Prizes

The annual conference of the Irish Economic Association was held on the 10th and 11th of May at the Central Bank. More than 160 people attended the conference.

Alejandra Ramos (TCD) was awarded the Conniffe Prize for best paper by a young economist at the conference. Alejandra received the prize for her paper titled “Household Decision Making with Violence: Implications for Transfer Programs”.

Benjamin Elsner (UCD) and Florin Wozny (IZA) won the Novartis prize for the best paper in Health Economics at the conference. The winning paper was titled ” The human capital cost of radiation: Long run evidence from exposure outside the womb”

Prof Wendy Carlin (UCL) and CORE gave the ESR lecture “The Econ 101 paradigm is broken – what is the alternative?” Her slides from the talk

IEA Dublin ESR Guest Lecture 2018

Prof Olivier Blanchard (Peterson Institute) gave the Edgeworth lecture “Should we reject the natural rate hypothesis” His slides from the talk

Edgeworth Lecture IEA 2018

On the IEA website there are plenty of pictures from the conference

http://www.iea.ie/category/latest-news/

Gerard O’Reilly

Call for Papers: Fintech and financial risk management: evolution or revolution?

A joint academic-practitioner conference on the theme Fintech and financial risk management: evolution or revolution? will be held in at the Institute of Bankers, Dublin, Ireland on Monday September 10th, 2018. The conference is organized by the Valuation and Risk Cluster (VAR), the Department of Economics, Finance & Accounting at Maynooth University, the Smurfit School of Business at University College Dublin, and the Central Bank of Ireland.

New financial technologies are producing widespread changes to financial markets and financial systems. The effects of the fintech revolution on risk measurement, analysis and control are not yet clear. How does fintech change the risk profile of financial markets? Can existing risk management systems cope with the new environment? What changes are required to existing financial risk management methods and systems? Will innovative applications of fintech improve risk measurement and management

Potential topics include:

• Flash crashes

• Risk measurement and control of black-box trading algorithms

• The impact of high speed trading on dynamic rebalancing and hedging

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based artificial intelligence and its trading impact

• High speed trading networks and systemic risk

• Information and noise cascading in networks

• Stability and liquidity of blockchain protocols

• Portfolio risk management with automated advisor systems

• Credit risk in fintech lending systems

• Fintech’s impact on the business models of existing financial institutions

• Applications of machine learning in risk management systems

Please send papers or detailed proposals by May 31st, 2018 at the latest to Na.Li@ucd.ie; all papers must be submitted electronically in adobe pdf format. There will be both main conference sessions and poster sessions. The academic coordinators for the conference are Gregory Connor, John Cotter and Trevor Fitzpatrick, who can be contacted at Gregory.connor@mu.ie,  John.cotter@ucd.ie,  and Trevor.Fitzpatrick@centralbank.ie. The administrative manager for the conference is Na Li who can be contacted at Na.Li@ucd.ie. There are no submission fees or attendance fees for the conference. We are grateful to the Science Foundation of Ireland and the Irish Institute of Bankers for their generous support of this conference. The Valuation and Risk Cluster (VAR) is a collaboration between University College Dublin, Maynooth University, Dublin City University and industry partners, with support from the Science Foundation of Ireland.

Conference on the German 3-Pillar Banking Model, RDS, 16 November 2016

The RDS will be hosting a conference on alternative banking models, focusing on the German 3-Pillar Banking System. The presentations will focus on the development and operation of the German Sparkasse banks and how to re-introduce that model of banking into Ireland. The Sparkasse banks focus on SME lending and form the backbone of the German banking system, especially in economically depressed regions and were a key part of the transition of the old East Germany.

Key speakers will be:

Prof. Eoin O’Dell, TCD Law School

Topic: How to create an Irish legislative environment for Sparkasse-style public mandate banking. 

Dr. Karl-Peter Schackmann-Fallis, Executive Member of the Board of the German Savings Banks Association

Topic: The Roots of German Local Banking, and its Future.

Mr.Heinrich Haasis, President of the World Bank of the Savings Banks, The Chairman of the Board of the Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation

Topic: Think global, act locally, cooperate internationally! How Sparkassen style banks have been introduced around the globe to benefit SMEs and the local community.

The event will be chaired by former TCD Economics Professor and Senator Sean Barrett.

Dr. Barrett was a member of Joint Oireachtas Inquiry into the Banking Crisis. Dr. Barrett will chair the conference and provide a closing comment on how the failures of 2008-13 could have been avoided and the need for a new approach to banking in Ireland. 

Registration for the event is here: http://www.rds.ie/Whats-On/Event/26638 

What: Conference on the German 3-Pillar Banking Model

When: 16 November 2016, 10h00-15h30

Where: The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) Library, Ballsbridge

Report of the Fiscal Council

Is here (.pdf). A few days late to this, so apologies, but just one thought:

Think how far our budgetary institutions have evolved. From Charlie McCreevy getting up on Budget Day in the early 2000s and announcing measures his own cabinet hadn’t heard of, to today’s fiscal council reports, Spring Statements, National Economic Dialogues, to the design of new structures like the Budget Oversight Committee, reviews of the process of national budgeting (.pdf), a Parliamentary Budget Office to cost the figures independently, and an agreed spending envelope by the public, a lot has changed in 15 years.

Despite the annoyance it generated during the election, the ‘fiscal space’ is a well recognized academic idea dating back to the 1990s, and the fact that the entire debate took place using broad parameters everyone serious agreed upon is a very good thing. We actually had a debate in Ireland, messy and all as it was, on whether to spend more on services, or give back more in tax cuts. Thus informed, the public chose the former in large numbers. They want a recovery in services.

Global crisis special issue of Economic Policy

A virtual issue of Economic Policy, bringing together a selection of articles dealing with the global financial, and eurozone, crises, is described here and is available here.