• • Program Chair: The program chair is chosen in agreement between the local organizer and the EC² director. The program chairman must be from a different country/university than the local organizer.

  • Theme of Conference: The theme is chosen by the program chairman in agreement with the local organizer and the EC² director.

  • Dates of Conference: Friday and Saturday closest to mid December (contact Director for setting the dates).

  • Size of Conference: Limit number of participants to 100 (we want to keep the size reasonable, too many participants create problems for lunches, dinner, organization, space and interactions).

  • Invited Speakers

  • Sessions: NO parallel sessions! There can be one poster session per day, but it should never be the first or last session of the conference.

For the local organizer

• • Schedule of program: see examples of last years, via their web pages.

  • Provide welcome reception on Thursday evening.

  • Provide lunches on site (lunch break is short) Friday and Saturday.

  • Provide dinner on Friday evening (try that it is finished not too late, 11 pm latest).

  • Find a nice room (every person in the room should see and hear very well). Think of modern technology (computer and projector). In 2005, 2006, and 2007 the meetings were held in a hotel, not in a university. This can be very useful since people can stay in the hotel and there is no need for organizing transportation, which saves funds and time. It is not required to do it in a hotel, it can be in a university provided it is not too difficult get there from hotels where people stay. Experience shows however that hotels are not as well equipped as universities in terms of a nice auditorium.

  • Conference fee: do not inflate it unless there is a budget shortage. Current practice is 100 euros for students, 150 for others. There is also a conference fee for accompanying persons (70 euros: it should cover welcome reception, coffee breaks, lunches and dinner).

  • Waive fee for the 4 invited speakers, invited discussants, program chairman and EC² director (but not for other speakers or presenters in the poster sessions).

  • The conference fee can be increased significantly for late registration (“late” to be defined by the local organizer).

  • For invited speakers, program chairman and EC² director, pay the travel (it should be kept reasonable: economy class only) and hotel accommodation.

  • Think about poster sessions (space needed, panels, enough space…).

  • Provide hotel addresses (make an agreement with them on rooms, price). Each participant makes his own reservation. Hotel should be as close as possible to conference site.

  • Website: Create a website for the conference and aks to have it cross-linked from EC² main website. (See websites for earlier EC2 conference for template and ideas). Please keep the website "alive" after the conference, as a source for information and inspiration for future organizers.

• Sponsors should be acknowledged on the conference programme, other publicity material and the web site.

  • Optional: Make a poster to announce the conference (with names of 4 invited speakers). Diffuse it (ask list of names to previous organizers).

  • Make a list of participants with their email addresses.

  • Financial Support: The Journal of Applied Econometrics has generously supported the conference over the years. They give an amount to support young people (this amount is typically used to offer a reduced conference fee to students). JoAE They ask also that the conference web site be linked to the JAE homepage. Applications for Conference Sponsorship from JAE must be addressed to Sue Chamberlain, and subsequently to the editor, Prof Hashem Pesaran. See the JAE website. Contact the European Central Bank for funding. They funded EC² since 2003. Econometric Theory has previously offered to sponsor one of the invited speakers.

  • Find local support for secretarial assistance and raise local funds (public and private are equally acceptable). You should be able to work with a budget of 30000 euros. Registration fees amount to about one third of this, sponsorships of JAE and other add up, and you have to raise the rest (e.g. you can think of your country Central Bank for additional support).

  • Coordinate with the chairman of the programme about invited speakers, program, and schedule…

For the program chair

• • Find 4 invited speakers. Contact them long enough (15 months seems a minimum) before the conference but not too long before. Their names are needed to advertise the conference. Preferably do not invite the same speakers as in the last 5 years (consult the director if you have doubts).

  • Coordinate with local organizer about amounts available for travel. Do not make promises that cannot be held. Avoid to pay more than economy fares for air trips.

  • Deadline for submissions of papers should be early October (or very close to it).

  • Decisions must be notified to authors not later than October 31. Authors should confirm their participation within 2 weeks. Keep some papers on reserve to substitute for those who withdraw.

  • You may get 70 to 150 submissions, so that some papers have to be rejected. Quality is of course the essential criterion, although papers should be related to the conference theme. For papers in poster sessions, it is less crucial that papers are strictly in the theme.

  • Since 2005, the chairmen have created a scientific committee to evaluate the submitted papers. Doing this is also an opportunity to suggest that the committee members can submit papers, and given that these members are chosen as experts in the theme of the conference, this is a way to increase quality in all respects. Some of these people can be selected as discussants of the 4 invited talks. It is also natural to include the local organizer and the EC² director in this committee.

  • Consider having a special issue for the conference. Contact the journal you find most suitable given the theme of the conference. Send a proposal with the call for papers including the names of the invited speakers and of the program committee members.