The 23rd Meeting of the New Zealand Econometric Study Group (NZESG), 21-22 February, 2013, University of Auckland Business School (UoABS)

The 23rd Meeting of the New Zealand Econometric Study Group (NZESG) was held over 21-22 February 2010, hosted by the Department of Accounting & Finance and the Department of Economics at UoABS. Programme Chairs for the Meeting were Professor Peter Phillips (Sterling Professor of Economics and Professor of Statistics at Yale University and Distinguished Alumnus Professor, University of Auckland), Professor Dimitri Margaritis (Professor of Finance, UoABS) and Dr Taesuk Lee (Lecturer in Economics, UoABS). NZESG was founded in February 1997, driven by the vision, initiative and energies of a small group of active and highly focussed econometricians from academia, the Reserve Bank and Wellington-based government departments.

Growing from a 15 participant, one day workshop in 1997, to a 30+ participant two day ‘mini-conference’, the workshop has retained its unique features of a single stream of presentations each with formal discussants, engaging audience participation, and wide international representation. The 23rd Meeting attracted delegates from many overseas countries including Australia, Japan, Korea, UK, Canada and the USA.

Twenty five papers were presented with themes ranging from ‘Applied New Zealand Research’ supported by a strong Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) presence – to ‘Theoretical and Empirical Developments in Financial Econometrics’. According to longstanding practice, all papers received comments both from a formal discussant and from the floor. This tradition of the Meetings is widely accepted as a major strength and is a valuable feature we hope to retain and extend to other meetings.

In the original spirit of the Group, emphasis was placed on encouraging, supporting and celebrating the achievements of emerging researchers. Yae In Baek from Yonsei University, Korea and Dr Lorenzo Ductor from Massey University were presented with the ‘NZESG Research Award’ for 2013, which was generously sponsored by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Katy Bergstrom and Gael Price of the RBNZ and Ole Maneesoonthorn of the University of Melbourne Business School received honorary commendations for outstanding presentations. Yae In Baek’s paper, co-authored with Professor Jin Seo Cho, examined the ability of the QLR (quasi-likelihood ratio) test to handle a threefold identification problem arising in testing linear model specifications. Lorenzo Ductor used panel data on economists publishing from 1970 to 1999 to test the causal effect of intellectual collaboration on individual research output. His main finding was that greater collaboration leads to higher productivity even after discounting by the number of authors working on an article. These excellent presentations were followed by thoughtful and well balanced discussions.

The organisers received a resounding ‘thumbs-up’ for the content, structure and organisation of the meeting and this was cemented at the conference dinner. The next meeting of the Group is planned for February 2014.