On June 2, 2012, Southeast University’s110th anniversary, three Nobel winners in economics jointly opened up the first large-scale academic forum after anniversary celebration at Jiulonghu Campus, Southeast University. The three Nobel Prize owners: Edmund S. Phelps, James Mirrlees and Edward C. Prescott gave the speech regarding the innovation in the development of China’s economy, and also interacted with teachers and students of SEU. Professor ShenJiong, the Vice President of SEU, hosted the academic seminar. Professor Guo Guangyin, the Chairman of University Council, gave the welcome speech and Mr.YanGongda’s calligraphy as gifts to three Nobel Prize winners on behalf of SEU. Zhang Weiguo, the Vice governor of Jiangsu province also attended the academic seminar. The Three masters’ excellent speech is a thought feast which gathers the world's top intelligence, and also a golden opportunity to have close dialogue with university students. In the section of question time, with respect to the hot issues, e.g. current global macroeconomic fluctuations, China's economic growth and innovation mechanism, three winners shared their unique observations, wise thinking and international frontier researches. Professor Xu Kangning, Dean of School of Economic Management, Professor Qiu Bin, Director of Social Science, and Professor Kose John from New York University attended the grand celebration, commented on the presentations of three economists and also gave their view on China’s economic performance, respectively. Professor Phelps from Columbia University focuses on macroeconomics researching. One ofhis most famous researches is the introduction of rational expectations into employment and inflation theory framework.Due to his proposition of “golden rate of capital accumulation” for economic growth and the contribution in inter-temporal decision-making equilibrium models, Professor Phelpswon the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2006. Professor Phelps made a speech titled "the New Trend of China's Economic Development" to discuss the issues and challenges China's economy may faceunder the current global economic pattern, including how China's economic structure adjust in the process of rebalancing the world economy, how to deal with inflation and to achieve sustainable growth. The second speaker James Mirrlees, a professor from University of Cambridge, engages in the research of incentive theory in his early years. He cooperated with Stiglitz in creating the principal-agent theory, which laid the basic model framework for principal-agent. In addition, Professor Mirrlees made outstanding contributions to the design of the optimal contract, theory of public finance and welfare economics underthe optimal tax systemand the asymmetric information structure. Because of the economic incentive theoryunder the condition ofasymmetric information, he shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Economics with another economist William Spencer Vickrey. Professor Mirrlees’s lecture topic is "Innovation in the Development of China’sEconomy”. He regards innovation as the growth momentum for China's next economic round, which will help China to actively thinking about how to explore an effective mode of the economic transformation and building an innovation-oriented society. Another Nobel winner in economics came from Arizona State University.Professor Prescottwon the Nobel Prize in economics in 2004 due to his contributions to dynamic macroeconomic research. The main academic contribution of Prescott lies in revelation of the driving force of the business cycle and time consistency analysis of the economic policy, which makes people have a deeperunderstanding of economic fluctuation, the business cycle, and the effectiveness of economic policy. In recent years, his researches focus on China’s economic history and the great depression. HenceProfessor Prescott's speech topic is "the Mystery of American’s Productivity - Worth China Drawing Lessons From". Professor Prescott sharedhis research on the relationship between changes of American’s productivity and the economic cycle, furthermore, he put forward theory and policy analysis for our reference.
Leaders and guests seated in the front row
