As we start a new decade in the 21st century (with apologies if this makes you feel old), I would like to offer my greetings to B&ES section members. The B&ES section, under Stuart Scott’s skillful leadership, had an outstanding 2009, which culminated in a very successful and visible presence at the JSM in Washington DC. B&ES organized 5 invited paper sessions and 14 topic contributed sessions, many of which were standing room only. The section sponsored the short course, "State Space Time Series Analysis in Practice," presented by Siem Jan Koopman. This course, which attracted a large number of participants, provided a modern and practical guide to time series modeling and forecasting to B&ES members and JSM members alike. By all accounts, Siem did a splendid job preparing and delivering a wealth of material in a systematic and digestible fashion.
In this report, I would like to provide you an update on the Section’s activities for 2010. If you have kept up with recent emails from B&ES, you have read about two of the awards the section is sponsoring again this year.
The section sponsors a Travel Award ($350/student) for two students to attend JSM. The application can be accessed on our website (http://www.amstat.org/sections/bus_econ/index.html). If you are a student or have a student who is thinking of making a presentation, check this out. The submission deadline is March 31.
We are continuing our sponsorship of the Zellner Thesis Award. Eligible are theses defended in the two-year period, 2008-2009, not previously considered for the award. In addition, the Shiskin Award is made annually for important contributions to the development of economic statistics or their use in economic analysis. Both have cash awards, with application deadlines of March 31 and March 5, respectively. Our website contains further details about these awards.
I'm pleased to report that our current membership is 1189, up from 1093 in August 2007. Roughly one third of you have free trial memberships. We hope that those holding trial memberships will find a connection with our section and will elect to become regular members at renewal time. The annual dues of $5 is rather modest and most of these funds go to support student and professional awards. In addition to sponsoring these awards, our main functions are organizing sessions that are of interest and relevance to section members and to sponsor other activities at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM).
As you probably already know, the JSM this year will be held in Vancouver July 31-Aug 5. After the Olympics in a couple weeks, it will be a treat to have a first-hand look of Vancouver and its newly constructed sites in the summer. Graham Elliott, this year's program chair, has put together a strong set of Invited Sessions (4) for JSM and promises that a number of Topic Contributed Sessions are in the works. If you plan to present this year, keep in mind the February 1 deadline (midnight, EST) for abstract submission. Since the ASA website gets busy then, it is preferable to submit before that date.
Longer term, we are looking for corporate sponsorship of some of our awards and other functions. This will help alleviate some of the stress on our budget and allow us to consider more initiatives. Since we have common interests with other sections of ASA, such as the one on Risk Theory, we are also looking to coordinate future activities with these sections.
Now let me thank those who have worked to make these things happen. For the Student Travel Award, Norm Swanson, Rutgers U (chair), George McCabe, Purdue U, and Torben Andersen, Northwestern U; for Short Courses, Sung K. Ahn, Washington State U, and Tucker McElroy, Bureau of the Census; for the JSM program, Graham Elliott , U of California at San Diego.
Finally, if you have suggestions or comments for the section, please call or e-mail me or someone else on our executive committee.
Looking forward to seeing you in Vancouver,
Dr. Richard Davis (email: rdavis@stat.columbia.edu)
Columbia University
1255 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 4690, Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027 , United States
Phone: 212.851.2137
January 2010
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