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2013 BILKENT ANNUAL SUMMER WORKSHOP IN ECONOMICS

Econometric Theory and Applications
Bilkent University Department of Economics holds an annual summer workshop since 2011. The 2013 workshop theme was "Econometric Theory and Applications" and took place on July 1-2, 2013. Participants of the workshop hosted by the Department of Economics at Bilkent University had the privilege of listening to and discussing with many prominent researchers in the field of econometric theory and its application. The three plenary speakers, Elie Tamer (Northwestern), Whitney Newey (MIT), Daron Acemoğlu (MIT) each provided a different angle to either an econometric theory or to the application of it. In his speech Elie Tamer discussed default bayesan inference for partially identified models. Whitney Newey’s seminar set the framework for welfare discussions when individual heterogeneities prevail. Daron Acemoğlu’s seminar on the other hand set up a framework to discuss industrial policy taking into account not only innovation and growth but also reallocation. These invigorating plenary speeches were followed by similarly exciting research being discussed.

The first day of the workshop hosted Neşe Yıldız (Rochester University) who presented a test for identification in nonlinear models, Haiqing Xu (University of Texas at Austin) who discussed issues regarding identification of discrete games Rami Tabri (University of Sydney) who presented estimation issues subject to a continuum of unconditional moment inequalities in the morning session. The afternoon session included presentations by Mehmet Caner (North Carolina State University) on “Oracle Inequalities for Convex Loss in High Dimensional Cases”, by Mika Meitz (Koç University) on a “Gaussian Mixture Autoregressive Model for Univariate Time Series“ and by Shin Kanaya (University of Aarhus) on the nonparametric estimation when the time series in hand has a mixed frequency structure.

The second day also hosted ample exciting research discussions, with the presentation of Semih Tümen (Central Bank of Turkey) on the racial differences in match qualities in the labor market, Ayşe Özgür Pehlivan (Bilkent University) on non-paramterically identifying and estimating trade costs and productivity differences, Cavit Pakel (Bilkent University) provided a framework for bias reduction in the presence of cross-section dependence in nonlinear and dynamic panels. The final session of the workshop included presentations by Taner Yiğit (Bilkent University) on identifying a cure for the shortfalls of random coefficients models, by Murat Kırdar (Middle East Technical University) on estimation of the impact of immigrant labor supply shocks in the labor market and Refet Gürkaynak (Bilkent University) who provided an evaluation of the DSGE models judged by the model’s forecasts.

During both days the discussions continued throughout the evening at the conference dinner as well as the trips to several historical sites in Ankara.