College of Public Health to co-host conference focused on Chinese economy

The University of Georgia will host the 2018 North America Conference of the Chinese Economists Society April 5-7 in Athens, Ga.

The Chinese Economists Society (CES) is a non-profit academic organization focused on the advancement and dissemination of economics and management sciences in China.

The conference will be held at UGA’s Terry College of Business in Moore-Rooker Hall. The James C. Bonbright Center for the Study of Regulation, the College of Public Health, and the School for Public and International Affairs are co-sponsors of the event.

Each year, the conference brings together close to 200 prominent health, economics and data science researchers from the U.S. and China for seminars, roundtables and workshops centered around scholarly exchange and professional development.

“The event will provide opportunities for attendees, including UGA faculty and students, to network with scholars from China and elsewhere and to be exposed to topics brought by the keynote speakers and the general sessions,” said Zhuo “Adam” Chen, associate professor of health policy and management in the College of Public Health and president of CES.

This theme of this year’s North American Conference is “Regulatory Impact Analysis: Methods, Applications, and Implications for Emerging Economies.”

“Regulatory impact analysis is an important tool used to assess and evaluate the positive and negative effects of proposed and existing regulations.  It has been widely used and adopted in developed countries, like the U.S., but less so in emerging economies, like China, where there is a lack of experience and expertise in this area,” Chen said.

The event’s four headlining speakers will address a range of issues related to the conference’s main theme and China’s economy: how to measure the value of health risks in emerging economics; the pros and cons of big data; empirical approaches to measuring returns on research and development; and monetary policy and shadow banking in China.

The keynote speakers are:

  • James Hammitt, professor of economics and decision sciences and director of Harvard Center for Risk Analysis at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health;
  • Ginger Zhe Jinprofessor of economics at the University of Maryland, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and former director of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics;
  • Mark Robertsprofessor of economics at Pennsylvania State University, research associate at the NBER, and member of the American Economic Association Census Advisory Committee;
  • Tao Zha, executive director of the Center for Quantitative Economic Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics at Emory University, and research associate at the NBER.

Julie Hotchkiss, director of the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will lead a roundtable discussion for researchers interested in accessing non-public Census microdata through the ARDC – part of the Federal Statistical RDC Network – for statistical analyses. The roundtable will also introduce participants to similar survey datasets available for study in China.

Professional development workshops will also offer a range of training opportunities for conference participants. Ali Kutan, editor of the journal Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, will offer advice on how to publish in top economic and business journals. Shuming Bao, director of the University of Michigan China Data Center, will train researchers in the use of the Center’s geographical information system (GIS) data tools, the U.S. Geo-Explorer and China Geo-Explorer.

The cost of the two-day conference is $150 for CES members, $120 for CES student members, $200 for non-CES members, and $180 for non-CES student members.

Since its founding in 1985, the CES has endeavored to promote market-based reforms and open-door policy, encourage academic exchanges and develop modern economic education in China. The China Economic Review, an English-language academic journal of worldwide circulation launched by the CES in 1989, is one of the most influential academic periodicals about the Chinese economy.

The sponsors for the 2018 CES conference include the Gregory and Paula Chow Foundation, Terry College’s Bonbright Center for the Study of Regulation, SPIA’s Department of Public Administration and Policy, the Department of Health Policy and Management at the College of Public Health, and the UGA Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

For more information about CES or to register for the conference, visit https://www.china-ces.org/Conferences/ConferenceDefault.aspx?ID=47

– Rebecca Ayer

Posted on March 22, 2018.