Theme & Program
Keynote Speakers & Special Round Table
We have the pleasure to announce the participation of the following Keynote Speakers in the 50th Anniversary European Congress of the Regional Science Association International in Jönköping, Sweden.
Prof. Fabrizio BARCA
The Annual Spatial Economic Analysis Lecture, co-hosted by the Regional Studies Association and the British and Irish Section of the Regional Science Association
- Biography:
Mr. Barca is Director General of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. His primary responsibilities include development policies, both national and European, for lagging or underutilized territories (mostly the Italian Mezzogiorno), establishing funding priorities (for about 16 billions euro a year) and public investment guidelines, evaluating policies and monitoring results. Previously, he was division chief at the Research Department of the Bank of Italy. He graduated from Rome University, carried an M-Phil degree and conducted research at the Universities of Cambridge (1978-80), MIT (1989-90), and Stanford (1994). He had appointments at the Universities of Bocconi, Siena, Modena, and Rome, where he taught corporate finance and Italian economic history. His works include papers and books on the theory of the firm, evidence on SMEs, corporate governance, the history of Italian capitalism, and territorial development policies. - The Barca Report
Prof. Annalee SAXENIAN
- CV
- Biography:
AnnaLee Saxenian is Dean and Professor in the School of Information and professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most recent book, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 2006), explores how the "brain circulation" by immigrant engineers from Silicon Valley has transferred technology entrepreneurship to emerging regions in China, India, Taiwan, and Israel.
Her prior publications include Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Harvard University Press, 1994), Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs (PPIC, 1999), and Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley (PPIC, 2002). Saxenian holds a Doctorate in Political Science from MIT, a Master’s in Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Economics from Williams College.
Prof. William STRANGE
- CV
- Biography
William Strange is RIOCAN Real Estate Investment Trust Professor of Real Estate and Urban Economics, Rotman School of Management and Department of Economics, University of Toronto. He joined the Rotman School of Management in 2001 from the University of British Columbia. At UBC, Professor Strange served as Chair of the Urban Land Economics Division and Director of the Centre for Real Estate and Urban Land Economics. Professor Strange is currently Second Vice President of AREUEA, and he has served on the AREUEA Board from 2004-2006. He is currently Editor of Journal of Urban Economics (with Stuart Rosenthal). Professor Strange’s research concerns urban economics and real estate. He has published on a wide range of topics. Some papers have dealt with industry clusters, spatial concentrations of employment like the Silicon Valley. Much of this research has concerned urban labor markets and worker skills. Other research has analyzed "private government," collective institutions that combine the features of the traditional private and public sectors like community associations, business improvement districts, private schools, and gated communities.
Moreover, a Special Round Table Session will be organised with
Prof. Paul KRUGMAN
Prof. Masahisa FUJITA
Prof. Anthony J. VENABLES
and Prof. Jacques THISSE will be leading the discussion.
- Biography:
Jacques Thisse, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the Regional Science Association International, is professor of economics and regional science at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and a member of CORE. His main fields of interest are in location theory, economic geography, industrial organization and public economics. He has published more than 150 papers in various scientific journals, including American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, International Economic Review, Mathematics of Operations Research, Geographical Analysis and Journal of Economic Geography. He has held a full professorship at the Sorbonne (France) and has been visiting professor at University of Pennsylvania and Virginia Polytechnic Institute (USA). He is the co-author of Discrete Choice Theory of Product Differentiation (MIT Press), Economics of Agglomeration (Cambridge University Press) and Economic Geography (Princeton University Press). He is member of the Paris School of Economics and a Fellow of CEPR.
Prof. Peter BATEY - Celebrating Plenary Lecture
Peter Batey has been Lever Professor of Town and Regional Planning in the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool since 1989. He holds degrees in Geography (BSc Sheffield), Planning (MCD Liverpool) and Regional Science (PhD Liverpool) and is a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute (FRTPI). Earlier in his career he worked as a professional planner in two local authorities in North West England. He spent 1981-82 as a Fulbright Scholar in the Regional Science Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Peter has been an active figure in the regional science community for nearly forty years, notably as the organiser of three ERSA Congresses (London, 1979; Cambridge, 1989; and Liverpool, 2008). He was a founder member of the European Organising Committee. He was Editor of the European volumes of Papers in Regional Science (1978-85) and chaired the Epainos Prize jury from 1999-2004. In 1997-98 Peter served as World President of RSAI. He was elected a Fellow of RSAI in 2006 and an honorary member of the Japan Section in 2008.
Peter’s research has been in the fields of planning methods, geodemographics and demographic-economic modelling. He has almost 120 publications to his name. Peter maintains a high profile in urban and regional affairs, currently serving as government-appointed independent chairman of the Mersey Basin Campaign (2004-10) and as a member of the North West Regional Economic Forecasting Panel. He was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS) in 2000. He serves as an Editor of the Town Planning Review.
Prof. Philip McCANN
Special Session: "The Swedish School of Regional Science".
Professor Philip McCann, University of Groningen has been appointed as a Special Adviser to Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy. Philip will work alongside the other newly-appointed Special Adviser, Fabrizio Barca, Director General of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance and author of the 2009 Independent Report "An Agenda for a Reformed Cohesion Policy".
