Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom is keynote speaker and Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg, is plenary speaker at ABCDE Sweden, which will take place from May 31–June 2, 2010. The overall theme this year is Development Challenges in a Post-Crisis World.
Each year the World Bank organizes the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE), which is one of the world’s best known series of conferences for the presentation of new knowledge on development.
First held in Washington DC in 1988, the series has become broader in scope as the world's economies have become more interconnected and challenges have grown more complex. Regional conferences reflect the increasing importance of research in developing countries.
This conference will be organized in Stockholm, Sweden on May 31–June 2 by the World Bank and the Government of Sweden (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on the theme "Development Challenges in Post-Crisis World."
Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, USA, will speak on: Overcoming the Samaritan’s Dilemma in Development Aid. Chair is Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation, Sweden
Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Ramon Lopez, University of Maryland, USA, give Plenary Session 1: Environmental Commons and the Green Economy.
>> Please visit the Swedish ABCDE-site, www.sweden.gov.se/abcde2010, to find the presentation and the Webcast on demand, scroll down and press "Environmental Commons and the Green Economy" - Thomas Sterner is introduced by the chair Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University. Sterner´s speech starts after 3:20 minutes.
The conference will focus on five broad topics:
- Environmental Commons and the Green Economy
- Post-Crisis Debates on Development Strategy
- The Political Economy of Fragile States
- News Ways of Measuring Welfare
- Social Programs and Transfers: Are We Learning?
Bio Thomas Sterner:
Thomas Sterner is professor of environmental economics in Gothenburg, Sweden where he has built up the Unit for Environmental Economics with a staff of about a dozen PhDs and 25 graduate students. This is one of the more important European centres for environmental economics and gives a unique PhD program in environmental economics with many graduate students from developing countries, plus a suite of programs from undergraduate to master and Phd specialized in environmental science.
The unit also has an expert advice service that serves the foreign office and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, with advice on environmental economics and a large volume of research.
The research is focused in three areas, the design of policy instruments, stated preference methods and behavioral and experimental economics. Thematically the research spans an area from climate, energy and transport on the one hand to forestry, fisheries, natural resource use and agriculture on the other.
Sterner has published more than 60 articles in refereed journals, and 10 books including one popular textbook published jointly by the World Bank, Sida and Resources for the Future, RFF. The main focus of his work is on environmental policy instruments with applications to energy and climate, industry, transport economics and resource management in developing countries. Together with Martin Persson, he received the Myrdal prize 2008 for work on the connection between relative prices and discounting in valuing climate change. Recently he has worked on the income distribution effects of fuel taxation as well as on incentive properties of different permit allocation schemes.
Sterner is a University Fellow of RFF, a Beijer Fellow. a SANDEE fellow and sits on numerous boards and is Past President for the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, (EAERE).