PRESS RELEASE: AFES/ASSE 2021

On the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée (ENSEA) of Abidjan, African Centre of Excellence in Statistical Training and the Econometric Society (ES) are organising the 2021 edition of the African Summer School in Econometrics (ASSE 2021) and the Africa Meeting of the Econometric Society (AFES 2021) which will take place from 26 May to 2 June and from 2 June to 5 June 2021, respectively.

These are two major international events of the prestigious Econometric Society (ES) that take place on the African continent on an annual basis. The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in relation to statistics and mathematics. ES is the world’s largest forum of economists including world-renowned academics in economics and related disciplines.

The Africa Meeting of the Econometric Society aims to promote across the continent the culture of economic analysis based on state-of-the-art quantitative methods founded on statistical and econometric theories. It provides a unique framework for bringing together researchers and policy makers from across Africa and the West while fostering strong synergy between African researchers and their peers from overseas.

Because of COVID 19, AFES 2021 has the particularity of being the first regional ESmeeting to be held in hybrid (online and face-to-face) format

The main theme of AFES 2021 is: “EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT”.

A panel on the theme: “Improving pre-secondary education in Africa: Key challenges and solutions for human capital development” will be moderated by high-level national and international personalities, namely:

• The Ivorian Minister in charge of National Education and Literacy
• The Minister of Technical Education, Vocational Training and Apprenticeship.
• Gilles Fagninou, Secretary of the Executive Board of UNICEF and
• Mbiti Isaac, from Virginia University (USA)
• Yaw Nyarko of New York University will be the moderator.

The keynote speeches focus on themes such as development, education and human capital and correspond to policy debates in many African countries, including our own:

This 2021 edition of AFES will feature the participation of the 2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics, the second most influential economist in the world, Professor James Heckman of the University of Chicago. Other keynote speeches will be given by the following eminent researchers:

Manuel Arellano (CEMFI, Madrid), Lisa Cook (Michigan State University), Pascaline Dupas (Stanford University), Kirabo Jackson (Northwestern University), Yaw Nyarko (New York University), Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale University), current President of the Econometric Society will give the presidential address.

AFES 2021 will be attended by 210 participants from all over the world, 158 presentations of scientific papers in parallel sessions, 07 keynote speeches and 01 panel discussion.

Highlights

The conference will be marked by several highlights:

• 03 June 2021: Opening ceremony
• 03 June 2021 Keynote Address: Kirabo Jackson “Education Policies for Sustainable Success “
  03 June 2021 : Keynote address: Pascaline Dupas “Secondary education performance: the experimental case of Ghana”.
• 04 June 2021: Keynote Address: James Heckman, 2000 Nobel Laureate “Interactions as Investments”.
• 05 June 2021 : Panel on “Improving Pre-Secondary Education in Africa: Key Challenges and Solutions for Human Capital Development”
• 05 June 2021 : Closing ceremony and awards.

The Africa Meeting of the Econometric Society will be preceded by the inaugural edition of the African Summer School of Econometrics (ASSE) from 26 May to 02 June 2021. This summer school will bring together students, young professors and research professionals from various African and foreign institutions.

The afternoon of the last day of the ASSE, 02 June 2021, will be devoted to the Marschak lecture of the Econometric Society given by Manuel Arellano (CEMFI, Madrid).

The summer school, led by renowned professors, will strengthen the capacity of learners in 5 specific areas which are:

• (1) Causal Inference and Policy Evaluation with (Quasi-) Experimental and Non-Experimental Data
• (2) New Trends in Panel Data Analysis Methods
• (3) Bootstrap Methods
• (4) Financial Econometrics and
• (5) Macroeconometrics: Time Series.

 

Due to COVID 19, both events will be held in hybrid (online and face-to-face) format.

For more information, please contact Miss OLAPADE Débora by email at: debora.olapade@ancien.ensea.ed.ci / servicecom@ensea.edu.ci

Call and WhatsApp: 27 22 48 32 48 / +225 07 57 44 40 84 /

 

APPENDICES

• Presentation of ENSEA
• About the Econometric Society
• Presentation of the main speakers

 

Presentation of ENSEA :

Created in 1961, the École Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée (ENSEA) of Abidjan is a National Public Institution of Higher Education and Research whose vocation is to ensure the training of statisticians for African countries.

To date, ENSEA has trained more than 4,000 statisticians from more than twenty (20) countries in Africa and Haiti. The quality of its training and the influence of its activities in the field of statistics enabled it to obtain the label “Regional Centre of Excellence” from the WAEMU in 2005 and the “African Centre of Excellence” from the World Bank in 2015. The latter label is attached to a project within the framework of the ACE Impact renewed for the period 2020-2025.

Best public administration in Côte d’Ivoire in 2017, ENSEA of Abidjan is among the best regional schools in West Africa. It is a member of the Network of African Schools of Statistics (RESA) with ISSEA in Yaoundé and ENSAE in Dakar and a member of the AUF. It is also a founding member of the African Group on Statistical Training and Human Resources (AGROST) and the Global Network of Institutions for Statistical Training (GIST).

ENSEA offers since the renovation of its training courses in 2019, two traditional courses of initial training. (ISE since 1987 and AS opened in 2020). Competitive examinations for the AD and ITS programmes, which had four initial training programmes, are now open at the request of the countries.

Three specialised Masters (Agricultural Statistics, Actuarial Science and Data Science) were opened in 2017 as well as a doctoral programme. A dozen modules for continuing education (statistics, Data Science – Big Data, economics and econometrics, information processing, monitoring and evaluation of projects and programmes, computer science and French-English language training) are offered to build the capacity of professionals.

ENSEA also conducts studies and research for regional and sub-regional organisations, public administrations and companies. Through training, ENSEA has become a pole of African integration in which future executives from the African continent mix their cultures and exchange their experiences, thus facilitating efforts to harmonise statistical practice. The administrative staff is composed of about 30 members. In addition to about twenty permanent teachers, about a hundred temporary teachers and professionals specialised in their fields complete the training system.

 

About the Econometric Society

The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory as it relates to statistics and mathematics. The main activities of the society are:

• Publication of the journals Econometrica, Quantitative Economics and Theoretical Economics.
• Publication of a series of research monographs.
• The organisation of scientific meetings in six regions of the world

 

The main speakers are :

• James Heckman (University of Chicago, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics – 2000): https://economics.uchicago.edu/directory/james-j-heckman

James Joseph Heckman (b. 1944) is an American Nobel Prize-winning economist currently working at the University of Chicago, where he is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Professor of Economics and College, Professor at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, Director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD), and Co-Director of the Global Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Working Group. He is also a professor of law in the School of Law, a senior fellow at the American Bar Foundation and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2000, Heckman shared the Nobel Prize in Economics with Daniel McFadden for his pioneering work in econometrics and microeconomics. As of December 2020, according to RePEc, he is the second most influential economist in the world.

 

• Kirabo Jackson (Northwestern University)/ https://sites.northwestern.edu/kirabojackson/

Kirabo Jackson, a labour economist who studies education and social policy issues, is a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University. He received his B.A. in ethics, politics and economics from Yale University in 1998 and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 2007. He was an assistant professor in the Department of Labor Economics at Cornell University between 2007 and 2010, and then joined Northwestern University where he received tenure in 2012. He was promoted to full professor in 2017. Jackson has analyzed several important aspects of education policy, such as the importance of public school funding on student outcomes in adulthood, the effects of college preparatory programs on student college and labor market outcomes, the effects of educational monitoring on student educational outcomes, and the effects of single-sex education on student educational outcomes. However, the bulk of Jackson’s work has focused on gaining a better understanding of teacher labour markets. Jackson’s extensive work on teachers examines the role of peer learning in teacher effectiveness, how student demographics directly affect the distribution of teacher quality across schools, how a teacher’s effectiveness depends on the school context in which he or she operates, how best to measure teacher quality, and other related topics.

 

• Lisa Cook (Michigan State University) / http://econ.msu.edu/faculty/cook/index.php

Lisa D. Cook is a professor in the Department of Economics and James Madison College at Michigan State University. As a Marshall Scholar, she earned a second B.A. from Oxford University in philosophy, politics and economics. Doctorate. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her current research interests include economic growth and development, financial institutions and markets, innovation and economic history. As a senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the 2011-2012 academic year, Dr. Cook worked on the eurozone, financial instruments, innovation, and entrepreneurship. She is currently the director of the American Economic Association’s summer training program.

 

• Manuel Arellano (CEMFI, Madrid) / https://www.cemfi.es/~arellano/

Manuel Arellano (Elda, Spain 1957) is Professor of Economics at CEMFI in Madrid since 1991. Previously he held positions at Oxford University and the London School of Economics. He is a graduate of the University of Barcelona and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. He has been editor of the Review of Economic Studies, co-editor of the Journal of Applied Econometrics and co-chair of the World Congress of Market Economics. co-chair of the World Congress of the Econometric Society. He is currently a member of the Scientific Council of the ERC. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy. He has been President of the Econometric Society (2014), President of the European Economic Association (2013) and President of the Spanish Economic Association. He has published numerous research papers on topics in econometrics and labour economics, including labour economics, especially on panel data analysis, and has been named Clarivate Citation Laureate in Economics (2018). Economics (2018). He is the author of Panel Data Econometrics (Oxford University Press 2003). Press 2003). He was awarded the Rey Jaime I Prize in Economics (2012).

 

• Pascaline Dupas (Stanford University) / https://web.stanford.edu/~pdupas/

Pascaline Dupas is Professor of Economics at Stanford University. She is a development economist who seeks to identify interventions and policies that can help reduce global poverty. Dupas joined the Stanford faculty in 2011, after spending two years on the faculty at Dartmouth College and three years at UCLA. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), the Board of Directors of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER). She is a National Science Foundation CAREER award winner, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a former Sloan Fellow, a 2015 winner of the “Best Young French Economist” award, and currently a Guggenheim Fellow. Dr. Dupas studied at the École Normale Supérieure (Ulm) in Paris, France. She received a PhD in economics from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris, France) in 2006.

 

• Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale University) https://economics.yale.edu/people/faculty/pinelopi-goldberg

Pinelopi (Penny) Koujianou Goldberg is the Elihu Professor of Economics at Yale University.  From November 2018 to March 2020, she was the Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. Goldberg is currently president of the Econometric Society and previously served as vice president of the American Economic Association. From 2011 to 2017, she was editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Sloan Research Fellowship recipient, and a Bodossaki Prize winner in the social sciences. She is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research (NBER), a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bureau of Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD)

 

• Yaw Nyarko (New York University) / https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/yaw-nyarko.html

Yaw Nyarko is Professor of Economics at New York University (NYU) and Director of the NYU Africa House, the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED), and Co-Director of the Development Research Institute (DRI). As Co-Director of the DRI, he received the 2009 BBVA Frontiers in Knowledge Award on Economic Development Cooperation. As one of the world’s top-ranked African academic economists, his research interests include economic development, theoretical economics, human capital models as drivers of economic growth, brain drain and skills acquisition, labour economics and migration. His current research interests include technology and economic development, trade and commodity markets in Africa, the determinants and returns to labour migration from South Asia to the UAE, and the impact of various policy measures on labour mobility within the UAE.

 

• Isaac Mbiti (Virginia University) https://batten.virginia.edu/people/isaac-mbiti

Isaac M. Mbiti is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Previously, Mbiti was an assistant professor of economics at Southern Methodist University and also the Martin Luther King Visiting Assistant Professor at MIT. His research has focused largely on African economic development with a particular interest in examining the role of educational policies such as free primary education and pay-for-performance teacher programs, as well as the potential of new technologies (especially mobile phones) to stimulate the development process. His ongoing research projects in East and West Africa assess various policies aimed at improving the livelihoods of African youth through training programmes. His research has been supported by numerous agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the International Impact Evaluation Initiative, USAID and the World Bank. He is a research affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT and was previously selected as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. His publications have appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the Journal of African Economies. He has also authored several policy reports for the Kenyan government, the World Bank and NGOs such as the International Rescue Committee. He received his PhD in economics from Brown University.

 

• Gilles Fagninou (UNICEF) https://www.unicef.org/media/experts/gilles-fagninou

Gilles Fagninou took up his position as Director of the Office of the Secretary of the UNICEF Executive Board in September 2020. He serves as Secretary of the Executive Board. Prior to this position, Mr. Fagninou held various senior positions, including Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa covering 24 countries. Earlier in his career, he worked on post-conflict and recovery programmes in Burundi and on poverty reduction in Benin, as well as being deeply involved in policy, operational and socio-economic research. Before joining UNICEF in 2000, he worked in academia as a researcher in macroeconomics in developing countries. He also worked on the West African Economic and Monetary Union regional stock exchange.