Summer School on Big Data for Economics gathers 32 participants from 14 countries

The 2018 Summer School on Big Data for Economics hosted by the Universitat de Barcelona School of Economics gathered 32 participants from 14 different countries from 2nd to 6th July 2018. Researchers, university lecturers, professionals at private companies and graduate students could be found among the participants in 5^th edition of the course.

The Summer School brought together people from around the world, allowing cross-cultural connections to develop. Europeans (excluding Spain) were the largest group, making up 39% of all participants. United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Romania were some of the European countries with a larger representation. Spain alone represented 36% of all participants, followed by the Americas (15%) and Asia (6%).

The academic coordinator of the 2018 Summer School Montserrat Guillen said “Big data analytics is truly a revolution for economic thought that is totally changing our discipline. We had an amazing blend of very skilled and motivated participants”.

The Summer School looked at Big Data problems from an Economic perspective. The choice of this year’s topic reflects the profound effect that the data revolution is having on economic research. Participants analysed why Big Data is an important issue for applied economists and learned several computer based techniques. Professor at the University of Rennes 1 Arthur Charpentier was the main instructor of this programme, in which also participated the University of Barcelona and Riskcenter researcher Lluís Bermudez.

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