The Dublin Economics Workshop will hold its annual economic policy conference at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone October 16th and 17th next. Proposals in any area of economic policy are invited and should be forwarded, ideally before September 4th, to both of the following: charles.larkin@gmail.com and colm.mccarthy@ucd.ie.
Programme and booking details will be circulated in due course. The Dublin Economics Workshop is kindly sponsored by Dublin Chamber of Commerce.
Colm McCarthy and I were up in front of the Oireachtas Finance Committee last week to talk about Greece. I attach my speaking notes. (Colm’s were essentially as published in the Sunday Independent the other day). I think it’s fair to say that we both kicked to touch on Pat Rabbitte’s question as to what politically acceptable solution could have been pulled out of the hat. This is a question for the diplomats and politicians rather than economists. The radicals and the establishment parties across Europe had manoeuvered each other so that they ended up painted not so much into a corner as up against an open 10th floor window. Someone was going to be defenestrated. And it was never going to be the strong.
Kevin Denny and I are organising a half-day workshop to look at Changes in Well-being in Ireland over the last 10 to 15 years. Obviously this has been an eventful time in Ireland and we think it would be very useful at this stage to draw together what is known about the Irish case. Our specific aim is to consider a wide range of possible outcomes including physical and mental health as well as subjective well-being. Moreover we want to draw on a range of approaches from epidemiology, psychological medicine and the social sciences as well as different types of data. Our intention is to have around 7 presentations with plenty of time for discussion. The event will be held in the UCD Geary Institute on Tuesday November 17th from 12pm to 4pm. A light lunch would be provided. Further details of the talks and how to register will be provided here in due course. Suggestions on the programme still welcome.
Since 2008 a number of us have organised an annual conference for people working at the interface of economics, psychology and related areas. Speakers have included international thought-leaders in this area including David Laibson, David Halpern, Robert Sugden, Arie Kapteyn, Ruth Byrne and John O’Doherty as well a diverse range of speakers from across economics, psychology and policy in Ireland and they have contributed to maintaining an active discussion of the potential for this area in Ireland. The next one will take place at the ESRI in Dublin on November 27th. At the previous session we agreed to organise some more adhoc meet-ups in between the events partly to disseminate new ideas and also with a view to establishing a more structured network in this area in Ireland. The first of these meetings takes place in Dublin on July 22nd organised by myself and Sean Gill. It will take place at 7pm sharp at the Roasted Brown coffee shop in Temple Bar. There will be 5 short presentations (to be listed here in the next couple of days) and some discussion about future events. Meet-ups around this area are now taking place in several cities including London and Sydney. I spoke at the Sydney event recently and it was extremely lively and led to several useful follow-ups. There are many people interested in this broad area in Dublin and Ireland more generally. This is intended to a broad forum and we welcome attendance and contribution from academics interested in exchanging ideas with a broad audience, people across different areas including students and people with business and policy interests in this area. For now we envisage the events being structured around short talks where a speaker describes briefly an idea they are working on or thinking about and potentially some suggestions for collaboration. Though there are many other event formats that could be considered. If you are attending please drop me an email at liamdelaney2011@gmail.com
Speakers:
Liam Delaney: Overview of behavioural economics, policy and business.
Michael Daly: Psychology, Self-Control and Policy
Sean Gill: Behavioural Economics and Health
Pete Lunn: Behavioural Economics and Regulation
Audience Contributions,
Q+A and Suggestions for Development of Network
The NBER organised a panel on the Greek crisis last week – video here.