Economists from around the world will gather in Eugene this week for the second InsTED workshop on economic development and international trade.

InsTED, the Institutions, Trade & Economic Development network, will meet over three days in a series of talks and panel discussions in the Maple Room of the Inn at the Fifth, at Fifth Avenue and Pearl Street. The event, sponsored by the UO economics department, begins Tuesday, Aug. 12, and registration is required.

Keynote speakers for the event are economics professors Avinash Dixit of Princeton University and Kamal Saggi of Vanderbilt University. Dixit is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and Saggi has been a visiting scholar at the World Bank, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization.

“The main theme of the workshop is to consider the role of institutions in either enhancing or retarding economic developments and economic trade, both of which are interrelated,” said UO economics professor Chris Ellis, one of the workshop organizers.

Established in 2012, InsTED looks at how institutions affect economic development and international trade. It also works to connect economics researchers and policymakers.

“The main goal is to bring together a bunch of academics who have similar interests and have been working in the overlap of these areas,” Ellis said. “Let them talk to each other in a fairly informal, comfortable setting so they can exchange ideas and push the borders of our knowledge a little bit further forward.”

InsTED is based at the University of Exeter Business School in the United Kingdom.

―By Nathan Stevens, Public Affairs Communications intern