European Trade Study Group

September 2019 (Volume 14 Number 1)

This year's conference in Bern has been a great success and it was all the more appropriate that it took place in Bern as it was also the ETSG’s 20th birthday and was organized by Joe Francois—one of the two founding fathers of the ETSG—who also organised our very first conference in Rotterdam in 1999. Joe was helped by a great team of local organizers coordinated by Ms Margrit Vetter. Thanks to all of them, the University of Bern, and the World Trade Institute for their hospitality, smooth organization, and also for providing sunny days!

ETSG and the WTO

The cooperation between the ETSG and the WTO continues. The 11th WTO Essay award has been awarded to Jan Bakker (University of Oxford) and Federico Huneeus (Yale University) who presented their work during the first plenary session of the conference. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the WTO in the coming years.

ETSG and Review of World Economics

The Review of World Economics (ROWE) awarded its fifth annual prize for the best paper by young economists presented at ETSG conferences. Lu Han (University of Liverpool) was presented with the award during the ETSG Conference 2019 in Bern. We hope that this fruitful collaboration with ROWE will continue in the coming years.

Late withdrawals from the conference

We continue to encounter problems with presenters not turning up at the conference, sometimes giving us little or no notice of the changes in their plans. It also seems that having a paper scheduled for presentation on Saturday is a cause of sickness. While we regret inducing health problems and we understand that there can be last-minute professional or personal emergencies that necessitate withdrawing from the conference, it is important to keep in mind the effort that goes into organizing such a large conference – and someone must present on Saturday. Likewise, it is a pity that some people manage to attend for only one day, as authors of papers on the waiting list may be able to attend the entire conference gaining and contributing to the proceedings. Rest assured that we are keeping track of no shows and, as competition for presentation slots is becoming increasingly intense, in future we may have to take into account these late withdrawals in deciding upon which papers to accept.

CONFERENCE NEWS

ETSG 2020 Ghent

Next year's conference will be held in Ghent (Belgium) at the University of Ghent from the afternoon of Thursday, 10 September to the evening of Saturday, 12 September. This conference will be organised by Bruno Merlevede and Glenn Rayp. A Call for Papers will be issued early in 2020 and details will be posted on the ETSG website in due course.

ETSG 2021 and beyond

We would like to thank all the people that expressed an interest in hosting a future ETSG conference. At the moment, we are in active negotiations for ETSG2021. The Scientific Committee met in Bern to discuss future locations and plans will be announced as soon as they will be finalized. In case you are interested, we invite you to contact us to discuss the possibility of holding the conference at your Institution. Our basic requirements are that the host institution be able to:

provide at least seven rooms for parallel sessions
provide one large room for plenary sessions (capacity of >300)
each room must be equipped with an overhead projector, a PC, and a data projector
provide catering for coffee breaks and lunches
provide drinks and snacks for a reception on (at least) one evening
coordinate accommodations for participants (generally working with the local tourist board or convention agency)