Warwick Economics Summit attracts speakers from across the globe

The tenth annual Warwick Economics Summit took place on campus between February 18 and 20.

The summit is a student-run, international forum which aims to promote the debate
of economic issues and encompasses development, politics and current affairs. The summit provides opportunities for student networking, with the social highlight of the weekend the dinner and dance, held on the second day. It aims to show the diversity of economics, with a broad range of topics covered in the talks, rather than focusing on a particular theme.

Jenny Quigley Jones, part of the team responsible for organising the talks commented, “The variety of speakers and topics was incredibly exciting – covering issues from sports, to crime, sex and alcohol to rogue trading. The summit this year really illustrated the diversity of economics as a discipline.”

The summit commenced with a seminar on the topic of fiscal and growth challenges, which was followed by Daniel Franklin’s ‘Megatrends’ and a talk entitled ‘The Economics of Sex, Alcohol and Happiness’, given by Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist.

The Saturday of the summit featured speakers Gregory Crawford, Andy Haldane and Linda Yueh who delivered the talks, ‘Doing Good with (Good) Econometrics, ‘Finance and Stability’, and ‘The Economy of China: Why Institutional Reforms are Key’. A lively Question Time Panel Debate also took place, led by Jasmine Birtles, Hugh Pym, Philippe Legrain and George Magnus, senior economics advisor at UBS investment bank.

Sunday featured lectures on the economics of hosting major sporting events, development and the history of crime in relation to economics. One of the concluding events of the programme was a humorous speech given by scientist Peter Backus, ‘Why I don’t have a girlfriend.’ Backus had conceived an equation to determine the probability of finding a suitable girlfriend in the UK. Paul Mason, Economics editor for newsnight expounded on currency wars and Greg Fisher, of the think-tank Respublica, spoke about the economics of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’.

Reflecting on the weekend, the head co-ordinator Darryl Mootoosamy stated: “As Coordinator of this prestigious event since almost a year ago, my aim has been to put on a spectacular weekend of entertainment for 400 students from around the world.

“With the help of my fantastic team of 45 students from the University of Warwick, I was able to bring students from different corners of the globe (including Rio de Janeiro, Massachusetts and Moscow) to our event, produce a lavish dinner and dance for our guests on the Saturday evening, and host a diverse array of excellent speakers throughout the weekend”, he concluded.

One student, Marijus Antonovic commented: “From an internal student’s point of view, the summit
was organised well and there can be no complaints. But the talks themselves were disappointing – very few speakers brought any new ideas or managed to view old issues from a different angle. There were talks worthy of attention on Sunday, but as they were micro-talks, the speakers were unable to elaborate more on them, which is a pity.”

However, with 16 speakers and guests from 17 countries, the sell-out success of the
event attested to its popularity.