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More than 300 participants from 60 countries participate in Barcelona Economics Summer Schools 2013

The seventh edition of the Barcelona Economics Summer Schools took place from July 1-12, 2013 at the BSE's Ciutadella Campus. A total of 320 participants from 60 countries came to attend courses in Banking, Labor Economics, Microeconometrics, and this year's new offer on Macroeconometrics.

Economists from 36 central banks participate in courses

Among the participants were central bankers from 36 countries including Chile, Denmark, Israel, Italy, and South Korea, as well as the European Central Bank and the United States Federal Reserve System. Other participant profiles included:

  • Consultants from firms such as Aguirre Newman in Spain and Towers Watson Shanghai in China
  • Researchers from organizations such as the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
  • Members of international organizations including the Bank for International Settlements, the International Labour Organization, and the Organisation for Economics Co-operation and Development (OECD)
  • Analysts in private companies such as Lottomatica in Italy (gaming industry) and TDC (telecommunications) in Denmark
  • Academics from universities including Stanford University, University of Basel, the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia, and many others
  • PhD students from the institutions such as the Max Planck Institute and the University of Oslo

Some participants were senior analysts or researchers, while others were young professionals or teaching assistants. The wide variety of profiles reflects the broad course offer of the summer schools.

New Macroeconometrics Summer School

New for 2013, the Barcelona Macroeconometrics Summer School has a special focus on applications and tools for empirical macroeconomics. The director of the new program is Prof. Luca Gambetti (UAB and BSE) who also teaches in the Master Program in Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets and the IDEA PhD program.

"The goal of the school is twofold," Prof. Gambetti explained. "First, to provide students with the knowledge of a variety of time series methods designed for empirical research in macroeconomics; second, to survey some of the current research topics in macroeconometrics. I am pleased to see that the first edition of the Macroeconometric Summer School has been interesting and successful enough to attract practitioners working at central banks, private and public institutions, as well as PhD or Master students and researchers."

Zacharias Bragoudakis is an economist at the Bank of Greece and a PhD student in Economics at Panteio University of Athens. He attended the Macroeconometric Summer School course on Modeling Non-stationary and Non-linear Time Series and found it both useful and beneficial for his work and research.

"The instructors Laura Mayoral (IAE and BSE) and Gabriel Pérez-Quirós (Bank of Spain) are at the forefront of this field and very experienced on modeling macroeconomic and financial time series data," Mr. Bragoudakis said. "I found the theoretical part of this course to be advanced but it was a rewarding experience. I look forward to being able to apply the knowledge that I have learned in the course to applied macroeconometric research."

The next continuing education course at the BSE will be the Intensive Course on Quantitative Methods for Competition Analysis, which will take place from October 23-26, 2013.

classroom

Prof. Marek Jarocinski (European Central Bank) teaches a course on Bayesian Vector Autoregressions and Small Sample Corrections in VARs

beach

Conversations continue after class at a café by the sea