Professor Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate, to Lecture at SASA

As part of the accompanying programme of the 21^st World Congress of Economists, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts will have the honour of welcoming Professor Eric Maskin, a full professor at Harvard University and a Nobel laureate in economics in 2007. The event is organised by the International Economic Association (IEA) and the Serbian Association of Economists in Belgrade in the period from 22 to 26 June.

Professor E. Maskin will give the lecture titled ’An Introduction to Mechanism Design’ on Tuesday, 23 June, at noon, at the SASA Grand Hall.

This lecture is a unique opportunity for the domestic academic community, students, researchers and the broader public to hear one of the most distinguished contemporary economists, whose papers have shaped modern economic theory, public policies and the understanding of how institutions work.

Born in New York on 12 December 1950, Maskin graduated in mathematics from Harvard College in 1972. Two years later, he obtained a Master’s Degree in applied mathematics, and he received a doctorate in the same field in 1976 from Harvard University. During 1975 and 1976, he was a visiting student at Darwin College, University of Cambridge.

During his career, Maskin made a substantial contribution to the development of game theory, incentive economics, contract theory and mechanism design. Together with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson, he was awarded the Nobel Prize, ’for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory’, a subject which has been considerably incorporated into forming economic policies, auctions, market institutions and decision-making systems.

Additionally, jointly with Jean Tirole, Maskin advanced the concept of Markov perfect equilibrium. His research projects also addressed different electoral rules, the causes of inequality, coalition decision-making and the functioning of democratic institutions.

Professor Eric Maskin is one of the foremost participants in the 21^st World Congress of Economists, the world’s largest conference dedicated to economics. It will bring together more than 1000 economists, researchers, economic policy makers and representatives of international institutions from more than 80 countries worldwide. It is the first time that the Congress is being held in the region of South-Eastern Europe. Furthermore, it returns to the European continent after more than two decades. The organiser of the event is the Serbian Association of Economists, which has been a full member of the International Economic Association since 2012.

Over the course of five days, more than 200 panels and 11 plenary sessions will be held, while over 600 scientific papers will be presented. The participants include leading economists from prestigious world universities such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, LSE and LBS. The central topic of this year’s congress is ’Contrasting World Visions: Globalism v Nationalism, Multilateralism v Bilateralism, and Democracy v Autocracy’.

The event will be streamed live via the link https://www.sanu.ac.rs/direktan-prenos/.

The lecture will be delivered in English and, per the lecturer’s request, will begin promptly at 12 o’clock. Late entry will not be permitted.