A unique experience

Roxana Halbleib, Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg associated with the Department of Economics, participated at this year Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Economic Sciences from 22nd of August until 26th of August 2017.

The meeting was attended by 16 Nobel laureates in economics, namely Peter Diamond, Lars Peter Hansen, Oliver Hart, James Heckman, Bengt Holmström, Finn E. Kydland, Eric Maskin, Daniel McFadden, James Mirrlees, Roger Myerson, Christopher Pissarides, Edward Prescott, Brian Schmidt, Myron Scholes, Christopher Sims and Jean Tirole and approximately 360 young researchers in economics.

My privilege to participate at the 6th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Economic Sciences is due to the nomination from Zukunftskolleg and the financially support by Zukunftskolleg and the Foundation Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The meeting was a once in a life experience during which the young economists got inspired by the academic leaders in the field from listening to their official talks or from the numerous personal discussions. The meeting was a great experience that offered unique opportunities to learn about the laureates’ latest research interests and share and discuss with them, but also with the peer colleagues, research ideas and views. Particularly inspiring were the talks given by Jean Tirole on the morality of markets and the role of individual and corporate responsibility in the market economy as well as by Bengt Holmström on the opacity of banking and money markets and the necessity of making them more transparent in the light of the previous financial crisis. Although one expected more talks/discussions related to financial crises and on what we, the ones in the academic community, should focus on in the future in order to avoid such disasters, the talks of Lars Peter Hansen (on uncertainty in climate economics modelling), Christopher Sims (on the role of central banks), Oliver Hart (on the communication between shareholders and managers on maximizing welfare versus wealth), Christopher Pissarides (on the role of technological changes on the job profiles) and Erik Maskin (on what is an appropriate election system for presidents) were also very interesting and inspiring. Also at the personal level, participating at this meeting was a great success as it led to become part of a broad networking and community of young economists from all over the world and, in particular, to make, hopefully, long lasting friendships with several peer colleagues. In one sentence, it was a long, but very intensive week filled up with continuous great intellectual challenges and very pleasant social encounters.

 - Roxana Halbleib