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Minutes of the meeting of the council
EEA proceedings/European Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
805
Minutes of the Meeting of the Council Held on 2 September 1994, 14h00, Room 1090, Economics University of Limburg, Maastricht.
Faculty Building,
Present: R. Guesnerie
(President), L. Phlips (President Elect), D. Newbery (Vice-President), A. Barten (Secretary), G. Basevi (Treasurer), Fr. Bourguignon (Managing Editor of the European Economic Review), S. Bentolila, L. Calmfors, P.-A. Chiappori, M. Dewatripont, B. Frey, C. Matutes, M. Meyer, T. Persson, R. Portes, W. Richter, J.-Ch. Rochet, H.-W. Sinn, A. Steinherr, E. van Damme, J. Vickers.
Notified absence: M. Ring (Past President),
M. Nuti, G. Tabellini,
J. Sutton, D.
Ulph, X. Vives, J.-P. Danthine.
Guest Participants:
U. Schweizer (Programme Chairman, 1994 Maastricht Congress), F. Palm (Local Arrangements Chairman, 1994 Maastricht Congress), D. Neven (Programme Chairman, 1995 Prague Congress), V. Benacek (Local Arrangements Chairman, 1995 Prague Congress), M. Sertel (to present bid for 1996 Congress).
1. Welcome to new members of Council The President welcomed G. Alogoskoufis, M. Dewatripont, C. Matutes and M. Meyer who joined the Council as of 1 January, 1994 for a period of five years ending 31 December, 1998.
2. Minutes of the Council meeting held in Helsinki on 26 August, 1993 The minutes, which also appeared in the Papers and Proceedings European Economic Review were approved without discussion.
Volume of the
3. Report of the president The full report will appear in the Papers and Proceedings but certain items were summarized.
Volume of the EER,
- The Yrjii Jahnsson Award Committee has been reorganized in consultation with the Yrjij Jahnsson Foundation. R. Portes remarked that the role of the EEA should be made more explicit at the award ceremony. - The 1995 Congress will be in Prague. The choice of this venue expresses the commitment of the EEA to contribute to the development of Economics throughout all of Europe. One hopes for an important participation from Central and Eastern Europe. Contributions on the economics of transition will be particularly welcome.
806
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
- The President also mentioned that an agreement has been reached with the European Standing Committee of the Econometric Society, responsable for the organization of ESEM concerning coordination of location for meetings. The President of the EEA (in year t - 2) consults in due time with the Chairman of the European Standing Committee (in year t - 2) with the aim of including at least one coordinated bid in the set of bids that are submitted (at year t - 2) to the European Standing Committee of the Econometric Society and the Council of the European Economic Association, respectively, for the Congress of year t.
4. Relation with Economic
Policy
David Newbery reports on the new developments around Economic Policy. In view of their role in the developments, Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn leave the meeting during part of the discussion. As David Newbery explains, the initial partnership of Economic Policy consisted of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and La Maison des Sciences de 1’Homme (MSH). The EEA had an agreement with these partners amounting to a subsidy of 5.000 ECU for Economic Policy, a discount of at least 40 percent for a subscription to Economic Policy by individual members and one seat on the Board of Governors consisting of five people. Negotiations were undertaken by the two original partners with the Centre for Economic Studies of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit& Munich, to strenghten and vitalise the role of Economic Policy as a European forum and to broaden its international basis. The EEA was informed of these negotiations and its role was redefined. In the new set-up the EEA has two members out of eight on the Board of Governors, which have been given sufficient power. The EEA is also assigned the role of arbitrator in case of irreconciliable differences between the partners. The Executive Committee proposes to the Council to continue its relationship with Economic Policy, to maintain its contribution of 5.000 ECU in exchange for a subscription price for EEA members of not more than 60 percent of the ordinary price and an increase from one to two seats on the Board of Governors. In the discussion, some Council members expressed their concern about the long-run aspects of the relation between the EEA and Economic Policy. The President invited Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn back into the meeting to react to this. According to Richard Portes a stronger relation between EEA and Economic Policy would be welcome but would involve also more financial support. Hans-Werner Sinn stressed that the extension of the partnership was motivated by the desire to join forces and that the present arrangement could be extended to include more partners. When Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn left the room, the proposal ‘that the European Economic Association welcomes the new contract among the partners of Economic Policy and wishes to continue its relationship on the same
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
807
terms as before’ was put to vote. The outcome of the vote was 16 in favour of the proposal and 2 abstaining. 5. Report of the Secretary The Secretary commented on the written version of the report, which had been circulated before and which can be found elsewhere in these proceedings. The drop in membership in 1993 is a reason for concern. A more active recruitment policy is needed. It was suggested to send a set of flyers with the membership application form to members of Council to distribute these to potential members, in their environment. The publishing of the 1995 Directory may also be used to generate members. Another reason for worry is the decline in the number of institutional members. 6. Report of the Treasurer The report of the Treasurer is reproduced in these proceedings. The accounts are now all on a cash flow basis. Although the 1993 showed a moderate surplus, a deficit is expected for 1994 and without change of policy for 1995. 7, Membership
fees for 1995
The 1994 and 1995 (potential) deficits require some equilibrating measure. A moderate increase of the basic membership fee by 100 BEF i.e. from 2.500 BEF to 2.600 BEF will be proposed to the General Assembly. 8. The Ninth Congress, Maastricht
1994
The Local Arrangements Chairman, Franz Palm, summarized his report, circulated before. He stated that a total of 633 participants had registered to date. The basic registration fee was fixed at 400 NGL. The Publishers Exhibition involves a substantial amount of work. The idea of having it all in one room could not be realized. Delegates from Central and Eastern Europe and from the CIS are not numerous, but require a lot of time in view of difficult communication and the strict conditions of the subsidies. The production of the Book of Abstracts was time consuming because for a large number of papers the abstract was not available in computerized form as requested. The coordination with the Programme Committee had been excellent. Urs Schweizer, the Maastricht Programme Chairman, summarized his report, circulated before. There were 3 A-lectures, 13 B-sessions, 1 Joint lecture (Labour History), 2 panel discussions and 75 sessions with contributed papers. 308 out of 543 papers submitted for the C-sessions were accepted. The 52% acceptance rate is similar to that of the previous year but lower than in the other yeas of the past.
808
EEA proceedings/European Economic Review 39 (I 995) 803-853
The final programme is reproduced in the Papers and Proceedings issue of the EER. There were about 19 C-sessions in parallel. In order to reduce the number of parallel sessions, the Council agreed with the Executive Committee’s proposal to add one half day to the Congress keeping the total number of sessions constant. 9. Tenth Congress, Prague 1995 Louis Phlips, President Elect, announced that the general theme of the Prague Congress will be From Industrial Economics to Competition Policy. The title of his presidential address is Game-Theoretic Contributions to Competition Policy. Jean-Jacques Laffont will deliver the Marshall Lecture on Game Theory and Structural Econometrics: The Case of Auction Data. John Sutton will give the Schumpeter Lecture which will be on Technology and Market Structure: Theory and History. The Programme Chairman for Prague, Damien Neven, circulated a provisional list of members of the Programme Committee and a list of 20 possible topics for 13 invited paper sessions. Several suggestions for other topics were made like: Non-Market Economics, Fiscal Competition, Practice of Transition Economics. Vladimir Benacek, the Local Arrangements Chairman for Prague, expressed his hope to increase participation by special promotional efforts. Given the budget, a basic registration fee of 200 ECU was accepted. 10. Eleventh
Congress 1996
A proposal was on the table to have the 1996 Annual Congress at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Murat Sertel, the eventual Local Arrangements Chairman, commented on the details of the proposal. David Newbery, who had been to Istanbul, confirmed the suitability of the location. Some members of the Council expressed their concern about the political situation in Turkey. The proposal to have the 1996 Annual Congress at Bogazici University, Istanbul, was put to a vote. There were 14 votes in favour while 5 members abstained from the vote. The proposed dates of 22-24 August were not convenient for people with rather late academic vacations. It was asked to seriously look into the possibility of shifting the meeting by one week to 29-31 August. 11. Report of the Editors of the European Economic
Review
Elsewhere in these proceedings one finds the Editor’s report. Summarizing the report, the Managing Editor, Fransois Bourguignon, mentioned that the acceptance rate for 1993 was below 13 percent. The table with the geographical breakdown of acceptance rates drew quite some comments. Specifically the low acceptance rates, for Germany e.g. in 1993 zero, did some members wonder whether there was not
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
809
an unintentional bias by the editors. Other members pointed out that (i) acceptance rates were very volatile over time, (ii) decisions were actually made by the referees, which had all kinds of national backgrounds. Ev’eryone agreed that whatever the interpretation were of the presented data, the confidence in the managing editor remained unchanged. 12. Standing Committee for Student Affairs The full report of Jean-Charles Rochet, Chairman of the Standing Committee for Student Affairs, is presented elsewhere in the Proceedings. The 5th Summer School on ‘The Future of Social Protection’ will take place in Fiesole, 7-16 September 1994, and is organized by Pierre Pestieau. The 1995 Summer School is on ‘Local Public Finance and the Economics of Location’ to be organized by Jacques Thisse. Jean-Charles Rochet announced his resignation as Chairman. The President deplored this step. He cannot but accept the decision. A successor will have to be found. He appreciates the willingness of Jean-Char18csRochet to stay on until a replacement can take over. 13. Date of next meeting of Council in 1995
The Council will meet on 1 September 1995, at 14hO0 in Prague. 14. Any other business arising
Hans-Werner Sinn pointed out the possibility of an annual meeting in Hamburg in the near future, say 1997. Professor Kantzenbach had approached him with a very credible proposition. The Secretary will contact Professor Kantzenbach. Anton P. Barten, Secretary
805
Minutes of the Meeting of the Council Held on 2 September 1994, 14h00, Room 1090, Economics University of Limburg, Maastricht.
Faculty Building,
Present: R. Guesnerie
(President), L. Phlips (President Elect), D. Newbery (Vice-President), A. Barten (Secretary), G. Basevi (Treasurer), Fr. Bourguignon (Managing Editor of the European Economic Review), S. Bentolila, L. Calmfors, P.-A. Chiappori, M. Dewatripont, B. Frey, C. Matutes, M. Meyer, T. Persson, R. Portes, W. Richter, J.-Ch. Rochet, H.-W. Sinn, A. Steinherr, E. van Damme, J. Vickers.
Notified absence: M. Ring (Past President),
M. Nuti, G. Tabellini,
J. Sutton, D.
Ulph, X. Vives, J.-P. Danthine.
Guest Participants:
U. Schweizer (Programme Chairman, 1994 Maastricht Congress), F. Palm (Local Arrangements Chairman, 1994 Maastricht Congress), D. Neven (Programme Chairman, 1995 Prague Congress), V. Benacek (Local Arrangements Chairman, 1995 Prague Congress), M. Sertel (to present bid for 1996 Congress).
1. Welcome to new members of Council The President welcomed G. Alogoskoufis, M. Dewatripont, C. Matutes and M. Meyer who joined the Council as of 1 January, 1994 for a period of five years ending 31 December, 1998.
2. Minutes of the Council meeting held in Helsinki on 26 August, 1993 The minutes, which also appeared in the Papers and Proceedings European Economic Review were approved without discussion.
Volume of the
3. Report of the president The full report will appear in the Papers and Proceedings but certain items were summarized.
Volume of the EER,
- The Yrjii Jahnsson Award Committee has been reorganized in consultation with the Yrjij Jahnsson Foundation. R. Portes remarked that the role of the EEA should be made more explicit at the award ceremony. - The 1995 Congress will be in Prague. The choice of this venue expresses the commitment of the EEA to contribute to the development of Economics throughout all of Europe. One hopes for an important participation from Central and Eastern Europe. Contributions on the economics of transition will be particularly welcome.
806
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
- The President also mentioned that an agreement has been reached with the European Standing Committee of the Econometric Society, responsable for the organization of ESEM concerning coordination of location for meetings. The President of the EEA (in year t - 2) consults in due time with the Chairman of the European Standing Committee (in year t - 2) with the aim of including at least one coordinated bid in the set of bids that are submitted (at year t - 2) to the European Standing Committee of the Econometric Society and the Council of the European Economic Association, respectively, for the Congress of year t.
4. Relation with Economic
Policy
David Newbery reports on the new developments around Economic Policy. In view of their role in the developments, Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn leave the meeting during part of the discussion. As David Newbery explains, the initial partnership of Economic Policy consisted of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and La Maison des Sciences de 1’Homme (MSH). The EEA had an agreement with these partners amounting to a subsidy of 5.000 ECU for Economic Policy, a discount of at least 40 percent for a subscription to Economic Policy by individual members and one seat on the Board of Governors consisting of five people. Negotiations were undertaken by the two original partners with the Centre for Economic Studies of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit& Munich, to strenghten and vitalise the role of Economic Policy as a European forum and to broaden its international basis. The EEA was informed of these negotiations and its role was redefined. In the new set-up the EEA has two members out of eight on the Board of Governors, which have been given sufficient power. The EEA is also assigned the role of arbitrator in case of irreconciliable differences between the partners. The Executive Committee proposes to the Council to continue its relationship with Economic Policy, to maintain its contribution of 5.000 ECU in exchange for a subscription price for EEA members of not more than 60 percent of the ordinary price and an increase from one to two seats on the Board of Governors. In the discussion, some Council members expressed their concern about the long-run aspects of the relation between the EEA and Economic Policy. The President invited Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn back into the meeting to react to this. According to Richard Portes a stronger relation between EEA and Economic Policy would be welcome but would involve also more financial support. Hans-Werner Sinn stressed that the extension of the partnership was motivated by the desire to join forces and that the present arrangement could be extended to include more partners. When Richard Portes and Hans-Werner Sinn left the room, the proposal ‘that the European Economic Association welcomes the new contract among the partners of Economic Policy and wishes to continue its relationship on the same
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
807
terms as before’ was put to vote. The outcome of the vote was 16 in favour of the proposal and 2 abstaining. 5. Report of the Secretary The Secretary commented on the written version of the report, which had been circulated before and which can be found elsewhere in these proceedings. The drop in membership in 1993 is a reason for concern. A more active recruitment policy is needed. It was suggested to send a set of flyers with the membership application form to members of Council to distribute these to potential members, in their environment. The publishing of the 1995 Directory may also be used to generate members. Another reason for worry is the decline in the number of institutional members. 6. Report of the Treasurer The report of the Treasurer is reproduced in these proceedings. The accounts are now all on a cash flow basis. Although the 1993 showed a moderate surplus, a deficit is expected for 1994 and without change of policy for 1995. 7, Membership
fees for 1995
The 1994 and 1995 (potential) deficits require some equilibrating measure. A moderate increase of the basic membership fee by 100 BEF i.e. from 2.500 BEF to 2.600 BEF will be proposed to the General Assembly. 8. The Ninth Congress, Maastricht
1994
The Local Arrangements Chairman, Franz Palm, summarized his report, circulated before. He stated that a total of 633 participants had registered to date. The basic registration fee was fixed at 400 NGL. The Publishers Exhibition involves a substantial amount of work. The idea of having it all in one room could not be realized. Delegates from Central and Eastern Europe and from the CIS are not numerous, but require a lot of time in view of difficult communication and the strict conditions of the subsidies. The production of the Book of Abstracts was time consuming because for a large number of papers the abstract was not available in computerized form as requested. The coordination with the Programme Committee had been excellent. Urs Schweizer, the Maastricht Programme Chairman, summarized his report, circulated before. There were 3 A-lectures, 13 B-sessions, 1 Joint lecture (Labour History), 2 panel discussions and 75 sessions with contributed papers. 308 out of 543 papers submitted for the C-sessions were accepted. The 52% acceptance rate is similar to that of the previous year but lower than in the other yeas of the past.
808
EEA proceedings/European Economic Review 39 (I 995) 803-853
The final programme is reproduced in the Papers and Proceedings issue of the EER. There were about 19 C-sessions in parallel. In order to reduce the number of parallel sessions, the Council agreed with the Executive Committee’s proposal to add one half day to the Congress keeping the total number of sessions constant. 9. Tenth Congress, Prague 1995 Louis Phlips, President Elect, announced that the general theme of the Prague Congress will be From Industrial Economics to Competition Policy. The title of his presidential address is Game-Theoretic Contributions to Competition Policy. Jean-Jacques Laffont will deliver the Marshall Lecture on Game Theory and Structural Econometrics: The Case of Auction Data. John Sutton will give the Schumpeter Lecture which will be on Technology and Market Structure: Theory and History. The Programme Chairman for Prague, Damien Neven, circulated a provisional list of members of the Programme Committee and a list of 20 possible topics for 13 invited paper sessions. Several suggestions for other topics were made like: Non-Market Economics, Fiscal Competition, Practice of Transition Economics. Vladimir Benacek, the Local Arrangements Chairman for Prague, expressed his hope to increase participation by special promotional efforts. Given the budget, a basic registration fee of 200 ECU was accepted. 10. Eleventh
Congress 1996
A proposal was on the table to have the 1996 Annual Congress at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Murat Sertel, the eventual Local Arrangements Chairman, commented on the details of the proposal. David Newbery, who had been to Istanbul, confirmed the suitability of the location. Some members of the Council expressed their concern about the political situation in Turkey. The proposal to have the 1996 Annual Congress at Bogazici University, Istanbul, was put to a vote. There were 14 votes in favour while 5 members abstained from the vote. The proposed dates of 22-24 August were not convenient for people with rather late academic vacations. It was asked to seriously look into the possibility of shifting the meeting by one week to 29-31 August. 11. Report of the Editors of the European Economic
Review
Elsewhere in these proceedings one finds the Editor’s report. Summarizing the report, the Managing Editor, Fransois Bourguignon, mentioned that the acceptance rate for 1993 was below 13 percent. The table with the geographical breakdown of acceptance rates drew quite some comments. Specifically the low acceptance rates, for Germany e.g. in 1993 zero, did some members wonder whether there was not
EEA proceedings/European
Economic Review 39 (1995) 803-853
809
an unintentional bias by the editors. Other members pointed out that (i) acceptance rates were very volatile over time, (ii) decisions were actually made by the referees, which had all kinds of national backgrounds. Ev’eryone agreed that whatever the interpretation were of the presented data, the confidence in the managing editor remained unchanged. 12. Standing Committee for Student Affairs The full report of Jean-Charles Rochet, Chairman of the Standing Committee for Student Affairs, is presented elsewhere in the Proceedings. The 5th Summer School on ‘The Future of Social Protection’ will take place in Fiesole, 7-16 September 1994, and is organized by Pierre Pestieau. The 1995 Summer School is on ‘Local Public Finance and the Economics of Location’ to be organized by Jacques Thisse. Jean-Charles Rochet announced his resignation as Chairman. The President deplored this step. He cannot but accept the decision. A successor will have to be found. He appreciates the willingness of Jean-Char18csRochet to stay on until a replacement can take over. 13. Date of next meeting of Council in 1995
The Council will meet on 1 September 1995, at 14hO0 in Prague. 14. Any other business arising
Hans-Werner Sinn pointed out the possibility of an annual meeting in Hamburg in the near future, say 1997. Professor Kantzenbach had approached him with a very credible proposition. The Secretary will contact Professor Kantzenbach. Anton P. Barten, Secretary