Co-sponsored by Asia University (AU), Economic Daily News and Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, “2014 Masters Forum - Economic Summit” took place at Asia University on Nov. 6. Dr. Lars Peter Hansen, recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences as well as professor in Economics of the University of Chicago, was invited to lecture in the forum. Dr. Hansen responded to Jing-Pha Tsai, President of Asia University, why the quantitative easing monetary policy did not reach the effect it was expected to. He said that the uncertainty of financial and monetary policies among nations had a huge impact on the public when they made investment decisions, and that the political uncertainty was less important than the consistency between financial and monetary policies via coordination nationally.

    In a dialogue with Jing-Pha Tsai, President of Asia University, Chih-Chin Ho, Vice President of National Cheng Kung University, and Zhi-Ren Sheng, General Manager of the LDC Group, Dr. Hansen also shared the global trends in economy with the audience. Zhi-Ren Sheng asked how we should deal with the difficulty in raising funds to invest start-up enterprises booming in Taiwan. In his reply, Dr. Hansen said that the start-up enterprises might not succeed because of the strict surveillance on financial markets by the government, which should instead offer complementary measures, such as preferential loans, to help and support the start-up companies running in the long term.

  Also, during the speech, a student asked that what else he should learn in school except for the professional knowledge. “University meant a lot to me. I did not think that I could make it to the university because I had not been a good student in senior high school.” said Dr. Hansen. “The fundamental knowledge like statistics, math, and writing must be acquired at first, learn as much as you can in the field you love, stick to it, and you’ll finally achieve success.” he suggested.

  Another question was also asked about finding the right direction when situations were not clear in life and school in addition to the economy. Dr. Hansen responded that there were indeed dark periods in our lives and that he had been through a bottleneck in which he could not conclude his studies, feeling just like walking in a dark tunnel with no way out. He told the audience that economic problems should be left to the government and professional scholars, and that one should keep a positive attitude when confronting darkness in life and school, trying hard and moving forward to goals in the meantime. He believed that one can accomplish something as he does as long as he/she exerts himself/herself constantly.

  Giving the speech “The Consequences of Uncertainty,” Dr. Hansen said that there are multiple components which cause uncertainty: model risk, model ambiguity, and model misspecification. Model risk refers to what probabilities a model assigns to events in the future while model ambiguity means "how much confidence we place in each model," he said. And model misspecification means "how we use models that are not perfect," he added. Any of the above elements could easily lead to an inaccurate forecast. Dr. Hansen emphasized that uncertainty should be well considered before any economic decisions or policies are made, because limits exist in predicting economic phenomenons or behaviors. “With restricted understanding, it could be a simple answer that solves complicated problems,” said Dr. Hansen.

  Mrs. Hansen, Ren-Rui Tsiang, a Ph. D. of the University of Chicago, is a daughter of Sho-Chieh Tsiang, a former member of Taiwan's Academia Sinica. She told the students that she specialized in economics as well, and helped Dr. Hansen to answer related questions during the intermission. By doing so, she made a great impression on the audience for her cordiality.

  “Asia University has spared no effort to have its scholarship meet the international level;” said AU President J. P. Tsai, “it is one of the important international academic exchanges that Asia University consistently does by having Dr. Hansen for the talk about economic trends with the ‘Generalized Method of Moments’ during the rapid change in global economy.” Su-Juan Huang, Principal of Economic Daily News, complimented that Asia University is the youngest of the top 100 universities in Asia in the UK Times Higher Education (THE) ranking, which is a pride to the central Taiwan, and that one of its excellent characteristics is to let the teachers, students as well as the public in central Taiwan join the speeches by the Nobel scholars through “Masters Forum.”

  It is the 5th year for Asia University to hold the “Masters Forum”. The teachers and students have gained precious experiences and international perspectives from 13 Nobel scholars. In addition to the teachers and students of AU itself, 130 students of the senior high school alliances of AU, including Changhua Girls' Senior High School, Miaoli Senior High School, Kaohsiung Jhong Jheng High School, etc., were also invited this year to participate in the forum and learned from the master closely.

Dr. Hansen lecturing “The Consequences of Uncertainty.”

Mrs. Hansen, Ren-Rui Tsiang, a professor in economics at the University of Chicago, showing her cordiality by replying to the students’ questions about economy.