European Society for Population Economics

Newsletter – Autumn 2012

(For a pdf version please visit: http://espe.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=37&Itemid=75)

Table of Contents

Newsletter edited by Laura Hospido, ESPE Secretary

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1. 2012 Executive Committee and Council

Executive Committee

Council Members

2. Message from the 2012 President

It has been a privilege and a pleasure to serve as ESPE President during 2012. I sincerely enjoyed our 26^th conference held in the beautiful Bern, Switzerland. For me it has been the perfect way to close an over 10 year period of service to ESPE - first as a member of the council, then as secretary, and finally as President-elect and President.

The success of every conference depends on the effort and hard work of many people, often “invisible”, who generously devote a lot of time to organize it. In this regards, Stefan Wolter and his team, as local organizers, did a wonderful job in making life very easy to all participants at the conference. Deborah Cobb-Clark, as the program chairman, managed to select and organize, with the help of the referee Committee, the best 250 papers out of more than 700 submissions. Among the more invisible ones, Laura Hospido and Thomas Bauer, as ESPE secretary and treasurer, respectively, are always behind every action taken by the society with regards to the conference. And finally all council members, who help the Executive Committee to organize and eventually improve the ESPE conference, which is the most important event of the society.  Thanks sincerely to all you.

But in addition to a successful logistic organization of the conference, there is an essential ingredient for the conference to succeed, and this is of course the quality of the scientific level of the papers presented at it. In this regards, given partly to the increasing number of paper submissions to the conference, partly to the overall increase in the quality of research in our field, and possibly partly due to a positive selection of participants in our conference, the papers presented in Bern were in general of very high and increasing quality.

Paper presentations came accompanied with excellent conferences given by our two keynote speakers – John Van Reenen, from the London School of Economics, and Muriel Niederle, from Stanford. Both speakers gave excellent talks and helped us devise the frontier of research in very different and hot topics. John reviewed the latest evidence on Wage Inequality, Skill Demand and Skill Supply.  Muriel reviewed the most recent experimental evidence on differences in competitive behaviour between women and men. Thanks, John and Muriel for your excellent talks.

Social events are also necessary to relax from paper presentations. This year the conference coincided with the European Football Championship, and local organizers took us to the Bern Stadium for dinner. We watched Germany playing (and winning) on the Stadium TV, which made German participants at the conference very happy.

We are now looking forward to the society’s next meeting which will take place in Aarhus (Denmark) in June 13-15.  I am deeply convinced that Jim Albrecht, as the program chairman will come up with a highly interesting program and Helena Skyt Nielsen and Nina Smith, as local organizers, will organize everything in a very efficient way so all participants feel very comfortable and have a nice stay.

I am very much looking forward to meet all of you there.

Sara de la Rica

2012 ESPE president

3. 26th ESPE Meeting and General Assembly in Bern

The Twenty-Sixth General Assembly of the European Society for Population Economics was held on Friday, June 22, 2012 at the University of Bern.

The President of the Society, Sara de la Rica, chaired the Assembly.

She informed that Deborah Cobb-Clark will be the next President in 2013 whereas James Albrecht will be the President-elect. He reported on the results of the elections held during the autumn of 2011. According to those results, he informed that the new members of the 2012 Council are Mikael Lindahl and Andrea Weber. Sara also thanked Erik Plug, Council member who left in December 2011.

The president informed that the council agreed on reducing the fees for the 2013 ESPE membership and for the 2013 Annual Conference, given that Springer has offered all ESPE members a cheaper online access to the Journal of Population Economics. Given that, the fee for ESPE membership will be 40 EUR, whereas the normal conference fee will be 300 Euros for early registration and 350 Euros for late registration. This normal fee includes ESPE membership and online access to the Journal. Members will also have the option of receiving a print-version of the Journal for an early registration fee of 330 Euros (380 Euros in case of late registration). In this latter case members will need to provide a valid mail address during the registration process. PhD Students will have a reduced fee of 230 Euros for early registration to the conference, and 280 Euros for late registration.

The report of the Journal of Population Economics was given by the Editor-in Chief, Klaus Zimmerman. He emphasized that this year marks twenty-five years of the Journal. He reported that apart from a small dip in 2010, the number of submissions has been consistently increasing and now exceeds 400 submissions in a given year. Klaus also informed that the ranking of the Journal is further rising and that the origin of submissions overwhelmingly continues to be from Europe. Regarding the acceptance rate, he claimed that there is a clear trend for more restrictive decisions. Finally, Prof Zimmermann noted that relatively few papers from the ESPE conference were submitted to the Journal; hence he encouraged participants to submit their papers to it.

Thomas Bauer, treasurer of the Society, made a presentation reporting the financial matters and membership situation in 2011. As of 31‐12‐2011, the net worth of ESPE is 70.505,01 Euros. As for the membership situation, ESPE has 754 members. He also informed that the accounts have been audited by Nicole Schneeweis and Konstantinos Tatsiramos. Their positive report has been approved by the Assembly.

Finally, on behalf of the Local Organizing Committee, Helena Skyt Nielsen announced that the 2013 ESPE Annual Conference will be held on June 12-15, at Aarhus University, Denmark. James Albrecht will serve as the program chair.

Sara de la Rica, ESPE President

Laura Hospido, ESPE secretary

4. 2012 Elections: President-elect and Council Members

Online-elections will take place in October 2012. The e-voting system will be provided to all members for whom we have a valid e-mail address. We will elect the new president-elect and four new council members. One candidate for president-elect and six candidates for the council are proposed and their biographical details are listed alphabetically below.

5. Call for Papers: 2013 ESPE Meeting in Aarhus, Denmark

The 27th Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE) will take place on June 12-15, 2013, at Aarhus University, Denmark.

The aim of the Conference is to facilitate the exchange of research ideas and results across a range of fields, including the economics of the household, labour economics, public economics, demography, and health economics. Examples of research topics are: human capital investment, gender issues, intra-household distribution, aging and social security, taxation, population and economic growth, domestic and international migration, income distribution and redistribution within and between generations, technological change and the environment.

James Albrecht (Georgetown University) will serve as the program chair and Helena Skyt Nielsen and Nina Smith (Aarhus University) as local organizers. The keynote speakers will be Bill Evans (University of Notre Dame) and Armin Falk (University of Bonn). The presidential address will be given by Deborah Cobb-Clark (University of Melbourne).

Abstracts and papers must be submitted electronically using the on-line submission form. Submissions must include an abstract and, if possible, the complete paper itself in pdf format (one single file, including tables and figures). Preference will be given to submissions that include a complete paper.

The submission deadline is February 1, 2013. Acceptance decisions will be announced by the end of March. Graduate students have a reduced registration fee, provided that his/her advisor confirms the student status.

For more details, please visit the conference web page: www.especonferences.org

6. Call for Contributions to the Newsletter and the ESPE website

The ESPE newsletter and the ESPE website provide information on the society’s activities, on past, present and future events within or outside the Society’s framework. All members are kindly invited to use both the ESPE Newsletter and the ESPE website to make announcements of events in the field of population economics. Please send all contributions to the Secretary by email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or use the intranet service available at the ESPE website:  http://www.espe.org

Continuously updated information on forthcoming events is available at the ESPE website: espe.org >> Events