BATON ROUGE – The Eighth Annual Advances in Econometrics Conference was held November 6-8, 2009, at the Lod Cook Conference Center on the LSU campus and was sponsored by LSU’s Department of Economics, LSU’s Division of Economic Development and Forecasting, the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana.
The conference featured econometricians from Canada, Germany, Norway and the United States, including the University of Texas, University of California-Irvine, Oklahoma State University, North Dakota State, New York University and LSU. Its purpose was to bring together authors of papers, a small and highly regarded collection of scholars, for discussion, debate and feedback on a specific topic in econometrics.
Papers presented at the conference represented a sample of those to be published in volume 26 of the Advances in Econometrics series “Maximum Simulated Likelihood.” The volume is set to be published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited in 2010.
Economics and statistics literature using computer simulation based methods has grown enormously over the past decades. Maximum Simulated Likelihood is a statistical tool useful for incorporating individual differences (called heterogeneity in the econometrics literature) and variations into a statistical analysis. Problems that can be intractable with traditional methods are solved using computer simulation integrated with classical methods. Instead of assuming that everyone responds to stimuli in the same way, allowances are made for the possibility that different decision makers will respond in different ways. The techniques can be applied to problems of individual choice, such as the choice of a transportation mode when traveling, or choice among health care options, as well as to the problem of making financial and macroeconomic predictions. Contributors to the conference discussed alternative simulation methods that permit faster and more accurate inference, as well as applications of established methods.
Professors Carter Hill of LSU and Thomas Fomby of SMU are the senior editors of the Advances in Econometrics series. The guest editor of the upcoming volume is Professor William Greene from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Professor Greene has authored many scholarly papers, as well as the widely used graduate textbook Econometric Analysis, now in its sixth edition. He has also developed the software LIMDEP that is used worldwide for analyzing economic, business and social science data.
For more information on the conference, contact Hill at 225-578-1490, or visit http://www.bus.lsu.edu/economics/.
The Department of Economics at LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business offers courses that provide its undergraduate and graduate students an intellectual challenge and strong analytic training and the tools to address the economic and social problems faced both domestically and internationally. The faculty’s dedication to quality teaching and research is reflected by numerous awards received and peer-reviewed scholarly articles published in high-quality economic journals. The Journal of Labor Research and the Journal of Macroeconomics, two highly regarded academic journals, are edited within the department. For more information, visit http://www.bus.lsu.edu/economics/ or call 225-578-5211.
