Winners of the WTO prize with their certificates signed by Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO. From L to R: Ian Wooton, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Michele Ruta (WTO), Kyle Handley, Joe Francois.
Winners of the WTO prize with their certificates signed by Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO. From L to R: Ian Wooton, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Michele Ruta (WTO), Kyle Handley, Joe Francois.
The annual conference of the European Trade Study Group (ETSG) was held in Copenhagen, Denmark from September 8 to 10. Founded in 1999 by Professor Ian Wooton (Economics) and Professor Joseph Francois of Johannes Kepler University (Linz), ETSG has grown to become the world's largest conference on international trade theory and policy. When they first thought of ETSG, professors Wooton and Francois had no idea that it would be so popular and become an established part of the calendar of large numbers of scholars in Europe and across the world. This year's meeting attracted almost 400 participants with over 300 papers being presented.
The scientific side of each conference is organised by the management board of the two professors and Dr Maurizio Zanardi of the Free University of Brussels. The conferences are hosted by local universities who provide the meeting facilities, marshal teams of student helpers, and raise the substantial funding necessary to mount the event. This year the local organisers were the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and the University of Copenhagen. The conference was held at CBS's superb new campus, with a reception in Tivoli Garden.
ETSG has a long-established and close relationship with the international policy community, having for several years been a launching point of the annual World Trade Report of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO has further recognised ETSG as the premier meeting place for international trade economists by choosing to announce the winners of its WTO Essay Award for Young Economists at the annual conference. This year's winners, who attended the conference and presented their papers, were Rafael Dix-Carneiro of the (University of Maryland) and Kyle Handley (Stanford University).
Preparations are already well advanced for future conferences. ESTG2012 will be held in the ancient university town of Leuven, Belgium while the 2013 conference will take place in Munich, Germany. Further details can be found at www.etsg.org.