Report by Les Oxley

Leading Econometrians Share Their Knowledge: The 19th Meeting of the New Zealand Econometric Study group (NZESG), 27-28 February, University of Canterbury

The 19th Meeting of the New Zealand Econometric Study Group (NZESG) was hosted and supported by the College of Business and Economics, 27-28 February 2009. Programme Chairs for this Meeting were Professor Peter Phillips (Sterling Professor of Economics and Professor of Statistics at Yale University and Distinguished Alumnus Professor, University of Auckland) and Professor Les Oxley (University of Canterbury). The Group was founded in February 1997, driven by the vision, initiative and energies of Peter Phillips and a small group of active and focussed econometricians from academia and Wellington-based agencies.

Growing from a 15 participant, one day workshop in 1997, to a 30+ participant one and a half day ‘mini-conference’, the workshop has retained its unique features of a single stream of presentations, with discussants and prestigious, international representation. The 19th Meeting attracted delegates from 5 countries including France, UK, USA and Australia including Professor Granville Tunnicliffe-Wilson (University of Lancaster, England).

Nineteen papers were presented with themes ranging from ‘Applied New Zealand Research’ supported by a strong New Zealand Reserve Bank presence – to ‘Theoretical and Empirical Developments in Financial Econometrics’. As has become an important feature of the Meetings, all papers received comments both from a formal discussant and from the floor. This characteristic of the Meetings is a feature that should be retained and extended to other meetings.

In the original spirit of the Group, emphasis was placed on encouraging, supporting and celebrating the achievements of emerging researchers. Scott Brooker (PHD candidate, University of Canterbury) and Valentyn Panchenko (University of New South Wales) were presented with ‘NZESG Research Award’ for 2009, which was generously sponsored by the Reserve Bank of NZ.

Organisers received a resounding ‘thumbs-up’ for the content, structure and organisation of the workshop and this was cemented at the Workshop dinner held on 27th. The next meeting of the Group will be hosted by Professor Dimitri Margaritis, at Auckland University of Technology and the plan is for it to be held early in the new year of 2010.