Fifth Conference "Recent Developments in Macroeconomics" at ZEW

On June 23 and 24, 2014, ZEW hosted the fifth conference on recent developments in macroeconomics. The annual conference is organised by the Research Department "International Finance and Financial Management" and has become an established forum of exchange and constructive discussion among both young scientists and experienced researchers.

As in previous years, the organisers had the pleasure to welcome many international guests – most of them from Europe and the United States – in Mannheim. Around 50 participants shared their recent research on topics such as public debt, economic imbalances, and the economics consequences of banking crises.

Keynotes on Trust and Growth as well as Business Cycle Synchronisation

Two keynote speeches were the academic highlights of the conference. At the beginning of the first day, Professor Yann Algan from Sciences Po University in Paris spoke on the role of trust and social preferences in economic reform processes. He introduced new forms of measurement for trust using experimental studies. Additionally, he emphasised the importance of social competences amongst the population and public programmes in support of such competencies in schools. On the second day of the conference, Professor Jean Imbs from the Paris School of Economics gave a speech on the measurement of international business cycle synchronisation. Besides discussing the role of financial linkages for synchronisation, he focused on the need for good and unbiased measures of synchronisation and presented novel developments and his latest research results.