41st Australian Conference of Economists 2012

The 41st Australian Conference of Economists, ACE2012 - 'The Future of Economics: Research, Policy and Relevance' - will be held at Victoria University, Melbourne from 8 to 12 July 2012.

Delegates include around 300 economists drawn from government, industry and academia, representing the best of our current and future policy analysts and business decision makers. ACE2012 has attracted 9 international speakers, 25 local speakers and approximately 150 contributed papers.

International speakers are Sir James Mirrlees (Nobel Prize winner), Jagdish Bhagwati, Lawrence R White, Olivia S Mitchell, Padma Desai, Eric Leeper, Deirdre R McCloskey, Wing Thye Woo and Selahattin Imrohoroglu. 

The Keynote Speaker address is open to the public:

Monday 9 July, 5.30pm: Jagdish Bhagwati; "Does Free Trade Matter Today?". BMW Edge, Federation Square, chaired by Peter Dawkins.

Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a prominent economist. He has made pioneering contributions to the study of development, globalization, international trade, foreign aid and immigration. He also writes frequently for leading media worldwide. He has served in many advisory roles, including the GATT as Economic Policy Adviser to Director General Arthur Dunkel and at the UN to Secretary General Kofi Annan on Globalization and on NEPAD Process in Africa. He works with many NGOs, including Human Rights Watch.

This lecture is being jointly sponsored by Victoria University and the Productivity Commission.

RSVP by Friday 6 July, via email: ace2012@vu.edu.au

The following sessions are also free, and open to the public:

• Tuesday 10 July, 5.30pm: Lawrence H White; "The Clash of Economic Ideas: Policy Debates and Experiments of the Last Hundred Years"
• Wednesday 11 July, 5.30pm: Padma Desai; "The status of the Russian Economy"

Local speakers include John Quiggin, Andrew Leigh MP, David Gruen (The Treasury), Allan Fels AO, Warwick McKibbin, Henry Ergas, Frank Jotzo, Ross Garnaut, Stephen King, Philip Lowe (RBA), John Laker (APRA), Steve Münchenberg (ABA), Phil Gallagher (The Treasury), Roger Jones, Michael Porter, Bruce Chapman, Simon Marginson, Andrew Norton, John King, Rod O'Donnell, Roger Jones, Ippei Fujiwara, Pascal Nguyen and John Piggott.

RSVP by Friday 6 July, via email: ace2012@vu.edu.au

For further information on ACE2012, visit www.ace2012.org.au