The 2010 CES annual conference was held in Xiamen, China, from June 19 to June 21. It was attended by over 300 participants from over a dozen countries and regions, including Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, USA, as well as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Prominent speakers at the conference included:
· Kaushik Basu (Chief Economic Adviser to the Department of Finance, Government of India and Professor at Cornell University),
· Siwei Cheng (former Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress and Professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences),
· Gregory Chow (Princeton University),
· Ravi Kanbur (Cornell University),
· Victor Kung (President of Fubon Holdings),
· Min-Juh Hwang (Chairman of Chinese Taiwan Securities Association),
· Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate, and Professor at Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University),
· Barry Naughton (University of California, San Diego),
· Dwight Perkins (Harvard University),
· Chi Schive (Chairman of Taiwan Stock Exchange),
· Luoling Wang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences),
· Shouyang Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and
· Wing Thye Woo (University of California, Davis).
The theme of this year’s conference was “The Role of China in the Post-Crisis Era.” It consisted of five keynote sessions and 51 parallel sessions. They covered a wide range of topics, including the causes of the recent Financial Crisis, RMB exchange rate, China’s one-child policy, experiences and challenges of China’s economic development, China’s stock and real estate markets, and economic issues in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In particular, Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin made a keynote speech entitled “Financial Crises: Why They Occur and What to do about them.” Furthermore, there was a roundtable forum on financial cooperation across the Taiwan Strait, and an author’s workshop on how to prepare manuscripts for international journal organized by Elsevier. On June 21, a forum on China’s economics education and research was held in honor of Professor Gregory Chow and to celebrate his 80th birthday. In addition to a speech by Professor Chow himself, deans and vice deans from seven Chinese universities offered their perspectives on the state of economics education and research in China.
The conference received warm welcome from the provincial government of Fujian and the municipal government of Xiamen. Fujian’s Deputy Governor, Hua Chen, and Chairman of Xiamen Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, Xiumao Chen, made welcome remarks at the opening ceremony on June 19. Later in the day the municipal government of Xiamen hosted a banquet to welcome all participants of the conference.
The CES would like to express its deep gratitude to the co-organizer, Xiamen University, for the tremendous work they have done in making this conference a great success. Members of Xiamen University, from the President of the University, Chongshi Zhu, to student volunteers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the conference went smoothly. Crews worked over time to finish the construction and testing of the new Science and Arts Center ahead of schedule, so that the CES could use the state-of-the-art conference halls for the opening ceremony and keynote sessions. Special thanks to the faculty, staff, and students of WISE (Wangyanan Institute for Studies in Economics) and the School of Economics for their careful planning and superb organization of this conference. For the past four months, many of them have sacrificed their weekends and holidays, and worked around the clock on the planning and organization of the conference. The success of this conference would not have been possible without their hard work and dedication.
