Welcome

A warm welcome to the 2024 EEA congress! I am looking forward to seeing you in the city of Rotterdam where Erasmus University, through the Erasmus School of Economics, is inviting us to their beautiful campus and they are getting everything ready for a stimulating and fun congress. You can expect an exciting academic programme, as well as entertaining social events. I hope it will be an occasion to meet old and new friends and colleagues, and to have invigorating intellectual conversations about the research we all love, often with an eye on making the world a better place.

We have an impressive academic programme, curated by programme chairs Ghazala Azmat and Ben Moll, together with their programme committee. They have selected excellent contributed papers – often making hard decisions to decline equally brilliant submissions –, and they have brought together twelve top researchers in six invited sessions on a broad range of specialized topics.

The keynote speakers are Marina Halac (Yale), who will give the Marshall lecture, and David Autor (MIT) who will deliver the Schumpter lecture. In addition, we have an opening panel discussing the impact of academic research on policy, as well as several panels and discussions throughout the congress organized by the Standing Committees (Education, Minorities, Research and Women in Economics).

I want to thank all the people who have contributed, and who continue to contribute, to turning this in an exciting academic conference. I am extremely grateful to all of you who travel to present and participate in the conference, to the programme chairs and committee, and to the local organizers, chaired by Philip Hans Franses. I am especially indebted to the EEA Executive Vice-President Antonio Cabrales and the EEA Executive Manager Gemma Prunner-Thomas, without whose behind-the-scenes work throughout the year there would be no congress, and no EEA. The success of our congress in the last three decades is in large part also due to the excellent collaboration with the Econometric Society, this year presided by past EEA president Eliana La Ferrara. There are plenty of synergies and spillovers of the partnered EEA-ESEM joint congress, which benefits the organization, the participants, and above all, the research.

I am looking forward to seeing you in Rotterdam!

Jan Eeckhout, EEA President 2024

It is a pleasure to welcome all of you to the European Meeting of the Econometric Society, to the Erasmus School of Economics, and to the city of Rotterdam. This in fact marks the 77th European meeting of the Econometric Society and the 39th meeting of the European Economic Association (EEA). I am very pleased to be holding the ESEM 2024 in person at this renowned school of economics. With nearly 7,000 economics and econometrics students and 400 faculty and staff members, it is the largest economics school in the Netherlands.  

I personally have a very fond memory of Rotterdam, and of the Erasmus School of Economics, since they hosted the 2nd edition of the European Job Market. The event was a great success, with almost 1,000 candidates and 185 recruiting teams, and marked an important milestone in consolidating the newly-launched initiative. It is exciting to be back here after almost five years!

The Econometric Society is one of the few truly global associations for academic economists and has been over decades an important organization guiding the development of economics and econometrics. In addition to publishing its three world-class journals, the Society is deeply committed to working with its six regions – Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America and North America – bringing economists together through its now 11 annual regional meetings and nine regional summer and winter schools and workshops. So successful has been the Society in its mission to promote statistics and mathematical methods that this now permeates all aspects of economics.  It is a great honor for me to be part of the Society, to serve as its President this year, and to participate in this and other meetings around the globe.

For those of you who are joining us for the first time, or just learning about the Econometric Society and the Erasmus School of Economics we hope you remain engaged with both organizations throughout your careers.  

We are especially excited to welcome you to the beautiful city of Rotterdam, a young and dynamic city known for its port, world class architecture, and lively cultural life among its many international draws.

We welcome a joint EEA-ESEM audience of registered participants from around the World. I am thrilled with our line-up of distinguished invited and contributed speakers. In particular, let me draw your attention to our two keynote speakers, Samuel S. Kortum (Yale University) who will be presenting the Fischer-Schultz Lecture, and Hélène Rey (London Business School) who will be presenting the JJ Laffont Lecture. I am also delighted to have Alberto Bisin (NYU) presenting the 3-part Hotelling Lecture Series, “On the Circulation of Elites: Culture, Institutions, and Socio-economic Growth”, that takes place Friday. Finally, I very much look forward to presenting the President’s address.

I want to recognize everyone who contributed to this endeavor. On behalf of the Econometric Society and the Erasmus School of Economics, I thank them all for their superb efforts.  

I especially thank the 2024 ESEM Program Chairs, Christian Hellwig (Toulouse School of Economics) and Olivier Scaillet (University of Geneva and Swiss Finance Institute) who have put together an exceptionally interesting program for us to enjoy in the coming days, and the Local Organizing Committee Chair, Philip Hans Franses (Erasmus School of Economics), as well as the other members of the committee, who have done a wonderful job planning and executing the event.

I also thank Ritu Johorey, who organized the details of the EEA-ESEM meeting with energy and efficiency and the EEA’s Gemma Prunner-Thomas who faithfully and efficiently manages this joint meeting year after year.

This too is a good opportunity to thank my colleagues on the European Regional Standing Committee; our chair Jean-Charles Rochet, kindly stepping in this year in this role but having served as President of the Society in 2012, and Sarah Smith, Secretary, also new to the role. I thank both for their willingness to serve. I must wholeheartedly thank Sven Rady, who just completed his final term as Secretary June 30, after nine years in the role, for his dedication to serving the Society and European Region, his good humor, and overall excellence.

I am happy too that the Econometric Society once again joins forces with the WinE Committee of the European Economic Association to jointly organize the 12th Women in Economics (WinE) Mentoring Retreat following the very successful WinE mentoring retreats held annually from 2013 to 2023. I thank co-chairs Paula Bustos (EEA WinE Committee Chair) and Caterina Calsamiglia (ES representative).

I wish all of you an enjoyable meeting with many stimulating interactions.    

Eliana La Ferrara
President
The Econometric Society