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SUMMARY:St Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar – ‘‘Calculating t
 he Costs of Conflict’\, Ron Smith - Ron Smith
DTSTART:20170426T170000Z
DTEND:20170426T183000Z
UID:TALK71582@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Philippa Millerchip
DESCRIPTION:*Date:* Wednesday 26 April 2017\n\n*Time:* 18:00 -19:30\n*Spea
 ker:* Ron Smith\n*Talk Title:* ‘Calculating the Costs of Conflict’\n*L
 ocation:* "Ramsden Room\, St Catharine’s College": http://www.caths.cam.
 ac.uk/conferences/conferences-and-events/meeting-rooms/ramsden-room\n\nhtt
 p://www.politicaleconomy.group.cam.ac.uk/events/RonSmith2017\n\nThe next S
 t Catharine’s Political Economy Seminar in the series on the Economics o
 f Austerity\, will be held on 26 April\, 2017 – Ron Smith  will give a t
 alk on ‘Calculating the Costs of Conflict’. The seminar will be held i
 n the Ramsden Room at St Catharine’s College from 6.00-7.30 pm. All are 
 welcome. The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Econo
 mics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Judge Business School.\n\n*
 Speaker:*\nRon Smith is Professor of Applied Economics at Birkbeck\, Unive
 rsity of London\, where he teaches statistics and econometrics. Prior to j
 oining Birkbeck in 1976\, he taught at Cambridge. He has also been visitin
 g professor at London Business School and the University of Colorado. He h
 as written 6 books\, edited another 3 and published over 200 papers mainly
  in applied econometrics and defence economics. His book Military\nEconomi
 cs: the interaction of power and money (Palgrave 2009) was shortlisted for
  the 2010 Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature. He has ac
 ted as a consultant to a range of bodies including Frontier Economics and 
 the UK National Audit Office on defence projects.\nHe is an Associate Fell
 ow of the Royal United Services Institute and regularly lectures at the UK
  Defence Academy. He was awarded the 2011 Lewis Fry Richardson lifetime ac
 hievement award for contributions to the scientific study of militarised c
 onflict by the European Consortium of Political Research.\n\n*Talk Overvie
 w:*\nConflict has a major influence on economic development and there is a
  large literature on the economic costs of military conflict. This present
 ation uses four questions to structure a discussion of the calculation of 
 conflict costs. The first concerns the purpose of the calculation: why is 
 it being done? The second concerns the counterfactual: what comparison is 
 being made? The third concerns the data: where do the numbers come from? T
 he fourth concerns aggregation and valuation: how are the elements of cost
 s (over outcomes\, time and individuals) combined? The literature is often
  not clear on the answers to these questions\, tending to take them for gr
 anted. However\, the answers are crucial to the calculation and are not me
 rely technical matters of economics and statistics but rest on both the un
 derlying objective of the calculation and fundamental philosophical and et
 hical judgements. The presentation will draw on “On the heterogenous con
 sequences of civil war” (with Vincenzo Bove and Leandro Elia) Oxford Eco
 nomic Papers forthcoming and “The Economic Costs of Military Conflict”
 \, Journal of Peace Research\, 51(2) March 2014 pp. 245 – 256.\n\nPlease
  contact the seminar organisers Philip Arestis (pa267@cam.ac.uk) and Micha
 el Kitson (m.kitson@jbs.cam.ac.uk) in the event of a query.
LOCATION:Ramsden Room
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