The Sixth Inforum World Conference at El Escorial, Spain

The sixth conference was held at El Escorial, Spain, in September 1998.  This conference was hosted by the Center for Economic Studies of Fundacion Tomillo (CEET).  Special thanks to Juan Carlos Collado and Elena Alonso for organizing the conference.  Pictured below, El Escorial was built in the 16th century by Philip II

Here is a brief summary of the conference:

On Sunday evening, September 13, the guests were welcomed with a dinner at the Royal College of Graduate Studies Maria Cristina.

Monday, September 14

On Monday morning the various partner groups gave reports on their accomplishments over the past year.  Next, Yasuhiko Sasai reported on the activity of the Jidea project in 1997.  This was followed by a presentation by Clopper showing the integration of the capabilities of Vam into the G7 program.  Next, Doug Nyhus discussed some of the intricacies in the consistent modeling of prices in input models, when all prices across a row are not the same.  Wang Yinchu also discussed the modeling of prices, presenting a proposal for calculating gross output prices based on value added indexes.

 

After lunch, Paul Salmon presented an overview of the FUR model.  After taking a coffee and surveying the surroundings, the Inforum partners started a busy session in the computer lab.

 

Tuesday, September 15

The first paper of the morning was by Kurt Kratena from Austria, and was a fine technical paper on the use of a modified AIDS model for imports.  Next, the Polish experience with including a variable for FDI into the foreign trade equations was presented by Michal Przybylinski.  After coffee, Mike Field spoke about real industry growth in China, over the period from 1985 to 1997.  Finally, Pan Shengchu discussed the foreign trade equations in the current Mudan model of China.

 

Wednesday, September 16

On Wednesday morning, Bert Smid kicked off the day with an impressive talk on the production structure of the Dutch economy.  Next, his colleague from Denmark, Peter Rormose, showed us scenes of the birth of DANDY3M, the newest model in the international group.  After coffee, Mr. Sasai gave a talk on his project studying the imposition of a carbon tax on the Japanese economy.  Following that topic, Mariusz Plich discussed simulation results of relating energy and environment in Poland.

 

In the evening, the group was treated to a visit to Segovia, which included dinner.

Thursday, September 17

.Fresh from the previous evening's inspiring visit, the group was welcomed with a talk by Doug Nyhus on modeling no growth in the Japanese and French economy, and its effect on the other countries.  Then Maurizio Grassini talked about his work in introducing "the accountant" into the Italian model.  The rest of the morning included the talk by Takeshi Imagawa on the effects of income tax cuts on the Japanese economy, and Gosha speaking about the use of the Russian model to study tax reform. 

This full day was capped off by Gerd Ahlert, from Germany and Carlos Llano from Spain.   Gerd spoke about his favorite topic: "Sports and the Economy".   Carlos discussed an ambitious project pursued by Tomillo of an interregional model for Europe. 

 

Friday, September 18

On the last day, there were only three talks.  Dr. Hasegawa spoke about the work he had been doing recently studying Asia-Pacific Interdependence, both with respect to trade and foreign investment.  Huang Chao Dong, from Cambridge Economics in England, talked about integrated modeling of Energy-Economy-Environment in the global economy.  Jesus Tapia discussed "Sectoral Perspectives for Spain: 1998-1999". 

 

That evening, the group made a trip to the Fundacion Tomillo in Madrid, and enjoyed a farewell dinner, for some of the participants that would not be going on the Saturday trip.

 

Saturday, September 19

On this beautiful day, the group made a pilgramage to Toledo, where they enjoyed lunch.