October 27th, 1999

Dear Friends,

We are writing to invite you to the Winter 2000 Edition of the Camps in International Economics and Finance.  The Winter Camp 2000 will be hosted by Universidad del Pacifico in Lima, Peru and held in Paracas, a splendid resort 150 miles south of Lima, during the week January 12-15, 2000 (notice the date change).

The Camps in International Economics and Finance meet twice a year, and are organized by the Center of International Economics at University of Maryland jointly with Universidad Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Universidad de los Andes in Bogota and Universidad del Pacifico in Lima. We have had two camps at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires (UTDT) and the previous Winter meeting was in Cartagena. The goal of these meetings is to gain a better understanding of the macroeconomic problems faced by Latin American countries, and to encourage research on the subject by young economists.

The program's format will be similar to our past meetings (for details on the last Summer 99 camp at Di Tella check here). Three days will be devoted to pure brainstorming among campers, and one to a conference open to the public that will be held in Lima. The morning of each brainstorming day will be devoted to the presentation of three papers, while the afternoons will be free for informal interactions, and visiting the wonderful Paracas.  You will have the opportunity to visit the Nazca lines from a plane, take a stroll at the beach, learn how pisco is really made, or just dine and wine at the sea shore.

We anticipate that there will be more participants than the nine papers that we will be able to accommodate during the brainstorming sessions. Thus, the only requirement is your willingness to be an active participant during those three days. (If you don't want or can't stay for the conference open to the public, which will take place the last day of the program, it is just as well with us too, subject to have enough volunteers). A special emphasis will be placed in attracting young scholars.

The topics for this Camp will be focus on the choice of exchange rate systems and on how feasible or desirable is to pursue an inflation targeting regime in a small open economy. We urge you to send us the title and abstract of one of your papers that you think best fits the objective. We will, then, select 9 papers out of the submissions for presentation in the brainstorm period. Our preference would be for papers that address the following question: How do characteristics of the economy like de-facto dollarization or widespread indexation limit the feasibility of these type of monetary arrangements?

The conference open to the public will include policy makers as well as academics, and will have an entirely different format. It will preferably be in Spanish (although we will have simultaneous translation), and the presentations must be policy oriented. We welcome suggestions. The focus will be on the lessons of the last restructuring process of banks within the region and the way different countries at the region have implemented inflation targeting regimes.

For academic participants, we expect to be able to offer hotel accommodations for you and your family at Hotel Paracas. In addition, we could cover round-trip economy class (cheapest) airfare for yourself. We urge you to find other sources of funds to cover transportation costs, as we are running this on a limited budget.

January is just a few months away, so we need to know as soon as possible if you are interested in participating and the probability of attending. In addition send us the title of the paper that you would like to present (if any) and a one page abstract.

Please, send us an email indicating your willingness to participate in the winter camp to winter2000@up.edu.pe. If you would like to present a paper send also a title and an abstract. We would like to receive an electronic copy of the papers (rough preliminary drafts are encouraged) by December 1st, 1999.

We really hope that you can join us at the beautiful Paracas. The last three editions have been a success, and we have every reason to believe that the next Winter Camp will not disappoint us.  

With our best wishes,

Guillermo Calvo
University of Maryland
Universidad Di Tella
calvo@econ.umd.edu

Eduardo Morón
Universidad del Pacífico
emoron@up.edu.pe
 
 

Send mail to winter2000@up.edu.pe with questions about the Winter Camp
Last modified: October 26, 1999.