Lars Peter Hansen, one of the three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, is to visit Taiwan next year, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) president Wu Chung-shu (吳中書) said.
Hansen is the son-in-law of Chiang Shou-chieh (蔣碩傑), the institution’s founder and first chairman, Wu added.
The CIER will invite Hansen, a professor at the University of Chicago, to attend a series of activities commemorating the 20th anniversary of Chiang’s death next year, Wu said.
Saying that Hansen has visited the country many times, Wu said that in addition to attending various Taiwan-sponsored international economic forums, the Nobel laureate has come to Taiwan before to see relatives or attend events commemorating his late father-in-law.
Chiang, a renowned economist who was an academic at Academia Sinica and a trusted economic adviser to former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982.
Wu said Hansen winning this year’s prize could be seen as redress for Chiang Shou-chieh not receiving the coveted award.
Hansen is a cofounder of the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, which builds on the legacy of Milton Friedman.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the Nobel to Hansen and fellow US economists Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller on Monday for their research on how financial markets work and how assets are priced.
The three economists “laid the foundation for the current understanding of asset prices,” the academy said.
Their work spans almost 50 years, beginning with the finding made by Fama, who is also at the University of Chicago, that it is difficult to predict price movements in the short run. That conclusion forms the basis for the theory that financial markets are efficient and led to the development of stock-index funds.
Wu said that Shiller, 67, a Yale University professor, has also visited Taiwan several times, most recently in May to attend a seminar in Taipei. In November last year, he delivered a keynote speech at a forum sponsored by a local magazine.
Lin Ming-jen (林明仁), an associate professor of economics at National Taiwan University, said that he once attended a class given by Hansen while he was doing a doctorate at the University of Chicago.
“Hansen is a true master in both economics and finance,” Lin said.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota on Monday said Hansen’s “remarkably general empirical methods free researchers from the need to make a range of empirically implausible statistical assumptions about the data that they are studying.”
Hansen served as Kocherlakota’s adviser at the University of Chicago.
Greenpeace yesterday said that it is to appeal a decision last month by the Taipei High Administrative Court to dismiss its 2021 lawsuit against the Ministry of Economic Affairs over “loose” regulations governing major corporate electricity consumers. The climate-related lawsuit — the first of its kind in Taiwan — sought to require the government to enforce higher green energy thresholds on major corporations to reduce emissions in light of climate change and an uptick in extreme weather. The suit, filed by Greenpeace East Asia, the Environmental Jurists Association and four individual plaintiffs, was dismissed on May 8 following four years of litigation. The
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A tropical disturbance off the southeastern coast of the Philippines might become the first typhoon of the western Pacific typhoon season, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The system lacks a visible center and how it would develop is only likely to become clear on Sunday or Monday, the CWA said, adding that it was not yet possible to forecast the potential typhoon's effect on Taiwan. The American Meteorological Society defines a tropical disturbance as a system made up of showers and thunderstorms that lasts for at least 24 hours and does not have closed wind circulation.
DIPLOMACY: It is Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo’s first visit to Taiwan since he took office last year, while Eswatini’s foreign minister is also paying a visit A delegation led by Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo arrived in Taiwan yesterday afternoon and is to visit President William Lai (賴清德) today. The delegation arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 4:55pm, and was greeted by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). It is Arevalo’s first trip to Taiwan since he took office last year, and following the visit, he is to travel to Japan to celebrate the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Arevalo said at the airport that he is very glad to make the visit to Taiwan, adding that he brings an important message of responsibility