The 55th Itinerant Conference of the Hungarian Economic Association will be kicked off by a presentation by Thomas J. Sargent, professor of New York University and Nobel prize winner for his ground-breaking research of rational expectations. His presentation, as well as an opening address by György Matolcsy, governor of the Central Bank of Hungary, will mark the start of the largest annual conference of the economics profession in Hungary at 2 p.m. on Thursday, 7 September in Eger.

The opening plenary session will be highlighted by presentations by Árpád Kovács, chairman of the Fiscal Council and honorary chairman of the Hungarian Economic Association (HEA), as well as Erik Bogsch, CEO of Richter Gedeon Nyrt. The session will be presided over by HEA chairman and Fiscal Council member Gyula Pleschinger, as well as by HEA secretary general Éva Hegedüs, chairman and CEO of Gránit Bank.

Having graduated from Harvard University, Thomas J. Sargent has lectured at the Chicago University, Stanford and Princeton (among others). He is now a professor at the New York University.

He has been a member of the American Academy of Art and Science since 1983, and a researcher of the Hoover Institution at Stanford for three decades.

In 2011, he received a Nobel memorial prize in economics together with Christopher A. Sims for empirical research on cause and effect in macro-economics.

The Itinerant Conference of Economics is returning to Eger after five years. Following the 50th anniversary event in 2012, the largest and most prestigious meeting of Hungarian economists will once again be held at the seat of Heves county on 7-9 September 2017. This year, too, competitiveness and innovation will be in focus. The conference will offer about 150 presentations in two plenary sessions and 15 sections. More than 700 Hungarian economists from within the country and abroad are expected to attend the three-day event.

As in previous years, the plenary meetings will feature presentations by economic and monetary policy-makers, and prominent figures in Hungary’s economy. The speakers in the 15 thematic sections will include senior economic and financial managers, economic researchers and company leaders, as well as secretaries of state. (The list of attendees is not yet final.) Besides conventional topics like finances, economic policies and EU funding, special issues will also be discussed in the sections, such as the situation of wineries, the protection of and utilisation historical buildings, novelties in the fintech sector, or current issues in sports financing.

Please visit the Hungarian-language home page of the conference (http://kozgazdasz-vandorgyules.blog.hu) for more information about the 55th Itinerant Conference of Economics and its regularly updated program. Registration is available on the same page.

(Photo: economics.rice.edu)