With the intention of fostering international academic cooperation between junior faculty and post-doctoral scholars working in economics both in China and abroad, IESR and HCEO (Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group) joined their forces in co-directing a 5-day Faculty Training Seminar on June 25–29, 2018. 

Five leading scholars – Lawrence Blume (Cornell University/ IHS Vienna), Chao Fu (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Petra Todd (University of Pennsylvania), Flavio Cunha (Rice University) and Steven Durlauf (University of Chicago) gave insightful lectures on intergenerational mobility, program evaluation, skill formation, economic theory, and structural modeling, thereafter opening up the space for all participants to join various research working groups, where they could present and discuss their own work.

Faculty Training Seminar had given an incredible opportunity for junior and post-doctoral scholars to finally get together, discuss their on-going projects, and help each other out with their research. These open discussions were especially helpful to junior scholars – they received a considerable amount of valuable recommendations regarding their work, and how to fulfill their research potential to the greatest extent possible. 

Post-doctoral scholars also gave a very positive feedback towards the seminar, noting that some of the projects and data discussed at the seminar were of significant value to them and their research. For instance, Christian Otchia (Nagoya University) noted that to him personally – Guangdong Manufacturing Enterprise Survey was the one thing that left him the biggest impression during the seminar, and he is hoping to be able to use that data for his own research in the future.

IESR and HCEO have been collaborating extensively since 2016. Faculty Training Seminar 2018 is already the third IESR– HCEO joint summer program (i.e. Summer School on Socioeconomic Inequality (SSSI) in 2016, 2017).

Below are some of the moments from the event.