ZEW Extends its Network at the 2015 ASSA Meeting

The 2015 annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) in Boston was a success for ZEW. The institute was represented by a delegation of six, who took this opportunity to exchange ideas with leading economists and upcoming researchers, to meet potential new employees, and to present their latest research findings at the world’s most important economics conference.

For the second time ZEW featured an information stand at the three-day conference to present the institute's research work and establish new contacts. Many participants were also interested in the Mannheim-based institute as an employer and met ZEW staff at the ASSA job market.

ZEW President Professor Clemens Fuest and his staff conducted job interviews with candidates to join ZEW's research teams. "The job interviews we conduct at the ASSA Meeting are a chance to recruit researchers for ZEW", Clemens Fuest says. "What's more, we also make contacts to new cooperation partners, many of whom come to ZEW as visiting researchers."

The scientific sessions at the conference also proved a success for the institute. In her presentation, Lena Jaroszek from the ZEW Research Department "International Finance and Financial Management" addressed the question whether knowledge about financial markets helps consumers to make better financial decisions. "We explore this problem with respect to the propensity of individuals to either make decisions rather quickly and intuitively, or deliberately," Jaroszek explains. The question at hand is whether a good knowledge of financial issues might be of no avail if one's personal financial decisions are not well-considered.

The focus of the study lies on consumers' use of overdraft credit and the impact of intuitive decisions. "Good financial knowledge is useful for all consumers, even if they tend to act in a hasty manner instead of reflecting on their credit decisions," according to Jaroszek's presentation of research findings at the ASSA meeting.

Following Philadelphia in 2014 and Boston in 2015, ZEW plans to participate once again in next year's ASSA meeting in San Francisco. There are some good reasons for the institute to do so: The ASSA is organised by the American Economic Association (AEA), one of the largest economic associations in the world with currently about 18,000 members. The ASSA Annual Meeting thus assembles the “who is who” of economics.