Annual reports 2009


Vienna, July 2010

Presidential Address

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

First, in your behalf, I would like to thank Jan Oosterhaven for his service; his enthusiasm for the organization has ever flagged; he has served as an editor of Economic Systems Research, as a member of the Council and for the last three years as President. In addition, he has been a major contributor to the field, pioneering new methods of interregional input-output analysis, alternative methods to update matrices and more recently some new thinking in spatial computable general equilibrium models. On Monday 7 June 2010, Professor Oosterhaven received a Royal Decoration at the day of his valedictory lecture. He was appointed an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Oosterhaven retired from the University of Groningen, as professor in general economics, with special focus on spatial economics. He has been connected to the University of Groningen for more than 40 years, 20 years of which as professor. Hopefully, his retirement will only free up more time for him to continue to attend IIOA meetings and offer his poignant comments on papers and anything else for that matter!

I am delighted to have been chosen as President of IIOA for the next three years. As many of you know, I have also been very active in the Regional Science Association International, but my affinity with the input-output community extends almost as long. I attended my first IO meeting in Geneva in 1970; it was there that I had the pleasure of meeting Wassily Leontief, Richard Stone, and Irma Adelman among others. The regional focus was also well represented with Jack Cumberland, Karen Polenske and Bill Miernyk (whose 1970 book on Principles of Input-Output has now been made available again – for free – on the Regional Research Institute’s website – www.rri.wvu.edu ).

IIOA is thriving; the last few major meetings have generated a real buzz of excitement at the new opportunities that are present for IO and IO-related work. In Sao Paulo, the largest number of sessions was devoted to links with the environment but it was good to see active participation across the spectrum, from issues with systems of national accounts to problems associated with general equilibrium models. Particularly pleasing in the last three conferences – in Istanbul, Sevilla and Sao Paulo - has been the number of younger scholars in attendance. In Sao Paulo, we offered a special session for these scholars focused on publication strategies; Erik Dietzenbacher (former editor of ESR and now IIOA Vice President) dazzled an audience of well over 60 persons (many of whom were far from young in age but clearly young in spirit) as he provided valued insights and commentary on the publication process but delivered in a relaxed, style infused with his unique brand of humor. In Sydney, we are offering some special teaching sessions and to continue to build our commitment to making IIOA an inviting group for younger scholars to belong. I have asked Erik to continue to focus on building our relations with younger members as part of his vice-presidential portfolio. Our other vice-president, Jiemin Guo along with Council member Bent Thage, will focus on enhancing our relationship with those who assemble the data and accounts that make it possible for us to construct our elegant models. Bert Steenge has been actively promoting closer ties with scholars and practitioners in Russia and the Former Soviet Union; Cuihong Yang will be asked to perform a similar task in China.

We would like to hear from our younger scholars about other special sessions or activities that they would like IIOA to offer to enhance their participation experience at IIOA meetings. An Input-Output School will become a regular feature of this and future meetings.

Looking beyond Sydney, 2011 will see the IIOA return to the US (on the east coast); explorations are in progress to hold a meeting in Russia in 2012. The Philippines and Korea are possibilities for 2013 and a return to Europe is envisaged for 2014.

Finally, congratulations to the editorial team of Economic Systems Research (including current and past editors) who managed to assemble enough convincing material this time around for the journal to be accepted into the Thompson-Reuter Social Science Citation Index. Many younger professionals have been under pressure to direct their work to SSCI journals (to ensure appropriate peer evaluation in their institutions). Now, we can but hope that ESR’s inclusion to generate a significant increase in submissions and enable to journal to enhance its already stellar reputation.

Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, President, IIOA

 

Membership

As of May 30, 2010 the IIOA member’s database counted 475 persons, comprising private members, representatives nominated by institutional members, and also current applicants for new membership. This represents a drop in the total count by 38 persons from 513 in April 2009, which is, however, misleading. The reason for the decrease lies in the applicant’s data: while in April 2009 there were 56 applicants recorded in the member database, end of May 2010 there were just 13. The fairly large accumulation of applicants in 2009 who never ended up making a contribution to become full members prompted the management to introduce a time-out rule for applicants in the database. This rule eliminates applicants' records in the member’s database after 90 days, if no contribution is made.

Calculating the IIOA's member counts excluding the applicants derives 462 members for 2010, an increase from 457 in 2009, and thus a slight increase in overall membership.

Membership (excluding applicants, as of May 25, 2010)

Individual members: 462

Institutional members: 15

 

Work of the Management: i.e. Secretary and Treasurer, comprised the following usual activities:

a) Membership administration,
b) recording of payments of membership fees,
c) dispatching annual contribution statements and payment reminders,
d) correspondence with institutional and private members on various subjects concerning membership,
e) communication with the Council,
f) communication with the Publishing Company on subscription updates for the mailing of the journal,
g) communicating with the Editor of the journal Economic Systems Research,
h) updating and expanding the IIOA website in cooperation with the IIOA webmaster,
i) organizing the Council meetings and the General Assembly,
j) acting on order of the Council,
k) preparing elections and appointments of the IIOA-functionaries,
l) supporting the preparation of the conferences.

In order to fulfill all these functions without incurring labor costs, IIOA management must optimally use information technology. The web-based member’s administration system (WEBADMIN), which rolled out in June 2008, has been key. It features decentralized address data updating, access to updated IIOA member contacts for networking, and access to free downloads of Economic System Research. While this customized system, which showed 0% downtime since it went live, continues to be fine-tuned and enhanced, two more systems have been developed during the last 12 months:

First, the Conference Paper Submission System (COPASS) has been designed and developed in order to ease the work of the Scientific Program Chair and Conference Organizers. It manages the collection, reviewing process and scheduling of scientific papers for IIOA conferences. It also automatically produces a draft conference program and time table as well as a booklet of abstracts and a list of authors.

Second, an Electronic Voting System (EVOS) has been developed and deployed. It permits IIOA members as well as the Council to vote via internet. It is anonymous, i.e. for each IIOA member a unique random code is created that is used only once. Of course, voting results are audited: EVOS creates a ballot trail for an independent auditor (a chartered accountant) and thus facilitates recounts for voting disputes, should any arise. EVOS has lead to three significant results:

First, it raised voting participation to levels never before recorded for the IIOA membership. Only 51 hours after the start of the Council Election 2010, IIOA had received the 95th valid ballot. In the previous election (2006), this was the final number of valid votes IIOA had obtained after months at the end of the entire election period. At the end of the 2010 elections, 201 members had cast a vote–a participation rate of 43%.

Second, since EVOS runs a validation procedure during ballot submission, invalid ballots are impossible, as the voting member is immediately informed of any occurring error.

Third, the costs of printing, wrapping, mailing, receiving, opening, and independent counting of ballots have been avoided and will continue to be avoided. At the current count of IIOA members and based on the actual election expenses recorded in 2006, the calculated costs of one single Council election conducted without an electronic voting system is 3.03 Euro. Development of EVOS cost 2,610 Euro and is thus already amortized.

 

Report on the Council Activities

The year 2009 marks the first since Norbert Rainer left the office of the Secretariat of the IIOA. The transition has been quite smooth, thanks largely to Norbert’s support during the first half of 2009. I formally record my deep gratitude.

The Council members of the IIOA have been in frequent e-mail contact with each other during the year. Until recently decisions were largely made via e-mail, but now EVOS is also used for Council votes on important matters. In addition, once a year during the annual conference Council hold meetings. In the case of 2009, we met during the Sao Paulo Conference in July.

The main issues discussed by the Council are described in this Annual Report and need not be mentioned again. However, the following issues – put together by Jan Oosterhaven, the former President – need some attention here:

Length of conferences

• Many exchanges occurred with regard to the relative merits of 3- and 5-day meetings (the latter with a mid-conference intermission), but no decision on this matter was taken.

IIOA Fellows

• Since they were not informed of the effect of not attending upon their ability to receive the award (according to existing IIOA Bylaws), Council decided that new Fellows Clopper Almon, Ronald E. Miller and Graham Pyatt will be treated as being installed despite their absence at Sao Paulo.
• Article 6 of the Bylaws on Fellows of the IIOA was changed so that installation in absencia is possible. The award can be received by a representative or via video.
• A new Article 8 now specifies the obligation of the Fellows to promote the further development and right application of I-O analysis, broadly defined.
• The new Bylaws will be sent to the Fellows and will be put on our website.

Input-Output Statistics Group (IOSG)

• We agreed on the establishment of this group and with its Bylaws. It is aimed at further integrating the work of I-O, SUT and SAM producers and the work of the users of these statistics.
• It presently is chaired (alphabetically) by Jiemin Guo (OECD); Sanjiv Mahajan (Office for National Statistics, UK); Brian Moyer (Bureau of Economic Analysis, USA); José M. Rueda-Cantuche (European Commission); and Bent Thage, (Statistics Denmark).

Teheran conference 2014

• We decided to thank the Iranians for their willingness to organize the IIOA congress in Iran and let them know we have great respect for their scientific and organizational capacities. Council, however opted to decline their invitation for the foreseeable future, due to security concerns noted by a majority of Council members.
• Council counter proposed with a smaller workshop to show the sincerity of the IIOA’s desire to further Iranian interest in I-O and IIOA membership.
Saint Petersburg workshop 2010

• Council accepted the invitation to co-organize a workshop in Saint Petersburg in fall 2010 with Prof. Alexander Granberg.
• We reserve an amount of max. 5000 US$ to help the workshop being organized. It will be spent on real cost that are deemed worthy by our treasurer, who in case of doubt will consult with the rest of the IIOA Executive Committee. It will not be transferred to the organizers in whole and is the maximum to be spent.
• Bert Steenge will coordinate the workshop for the IIOA.
• Hewings, Oosterhaven, Thage and Rueda-Cantuche have offered to participate.

Oliver Fritz, Secretary, IIOA

 

Report on the 17th International Input-Output Conference, July 13-17, 2009, São Paulo, Brazil

The 17th International Input-Output Conference took place from July 12th-17th of 2009 in the city of São Paulo. It was jointly organized by the International Input-Output Organization Association (IIOA) and the Department of Economics of the School of Economics, Administration and Accountancy of the University of São Paulo (USP). During the conference, the meeting welcomed 180 participants from different organizations and universities around the world. The following table presents information about the participants dividing them in four major groups:

Show table 1

Table 2 divides the participants by country of affiliation, not taking into account the accompanying people. The largest group was formed by Brazil, representing 26% of the total of participants. This group, however, is composed not only professors but also of staff members who had the opportunity to attend some presentations. The participants from Spain were the second largest group in the Conference, 10% of the total. Besides these two countries, participants from Japan, China and The Netherlands also represent important shares of the Conference’s participants.

When we analyze the attendance by continents of affiliation, it is evident that people from Europe represented a significant part of the participants, with 37.5% of the total. More than 30% of the participants come from the American continent. However, Oceania only represents 0.06%.

Show table 2

The data show the high cultural diversity of Conference participants. People from all the continents were able to share valuable information and experiences. However, the number of participants could have been larger if it was not for some problems. Some participants faced problems regarding the visa applications, and did not manage to obtain entry visa on time. One Japanese member was concerned about the H1N1 disease and decided not to take part. Furthermore, others participants did not have the financial support to travel.

Initially, 164 papers and 1 course were programmed to be offered during the meeting. However, only 144 that were planned were actually presented, due to some absences. This level attrition unfortunately remains normal for IIOA conferences. Papers were presented at 49 parallel sessions and 4 plenary sessions during the four main days of the conference. The parallel sessions covered a wide range of themes and subjects related to input-output, macroeconomics, environmental economics, tourism, general equilibrium and economic development. The plenary sessions gave the opportunity for keynote speakers to present their work. Following the success in Seville, a mix of senior and mid-career scholars was chosen for plenary sessions. Participants generally agreed that the presentations were excellent but some sessions suffered from logistical issues.

Show table 3

The plenary sessions were held at the school auditorium. The keynote speakers for the meeting were: Prof. Thijs ten Raa, from Tilburg University, Netherlands; Dr. Sanjiv Mahajan, Head of National Accounts Strategy and Development Office for National Statistics, UK; Prof. Yang Cuihong from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, CAS, China; and Prof. Eduardo Haddad from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

During the Conference days, a Cyber Café, provided by the Brazilian statistical office, IBGE, was available to the participants. Moreover, a tourism agency was present to offer some information about Brazil. To assist the participants, the event counted on the help of a group of 15 staff members who were students of Economics at the University. Furthermore, the company “Acquaviva Promoções e Eventos” was responsible for receiving the payments.

An excursion took place on Wednesday where the participants visited some important tourist sites of Sao Paulo.

The Sao Paulo conference achieved International Input-Output Association’s expectations; they also represented both a challenge and a great pleasure for the School of Economics, Business and Accountancy. They confirmed the school’s position as an international reference on research and teaching. Thus, the event succeeded on two fronts.

Our recent experience enables us to offer some suggestions for future conference organizers:

First, more parallel sessions reduce the size of the audience in each session considerably; it varied from 10 to 30 people. Fewer sessions would enable more participants to engage in a similar conference experience. One alternative, reducing presentation time (fewer sessions but more papers per session) would probably make the overall meeting less attractive to presenters.

Second, changes to the conference program are problematic. Participants must have better a better way of getting information about any changes, perhaps by using posters or flyers, for example.

Third, presenters should be encouraged to be at the presentation room 10-15 minutes before the session begins to ensure that their paper is ready to be presented. In this way, conference organizers could be sure that all equipment is working properly and that staff are readily dispensed to assist.

Fourthly, the selection of chairs in each session should be carefully analyzed. It is important that all chairs speak English fluently in order to avoid communication problems with the audience and the speaker.

Finally, the Local Organizing Committee of future conferences must address the problem of the language of the computers. Windows in English is essential so foreign participants can use the computers properly.

Papers presented at the conference can be downloaded from our website:

http://www.iioa.org/Conference/17th-downable%20paper.htm

Joaquim Guilhoto, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee



Preparation of the 18th International Input-Output Conference, June 20-25, 2010, Sydney, Australia

Sydney’s Conference bid was presented to Council during the 2008 Intermediate Input-Output Conference in Seville, Spain. The University of Sydney (Usyd) was informed of the successful outcome in November 2008. Preparation started then.

The organization went largely smoothly, except for budget planning. Below is a list of issues that arose, and that may be helpful for future conference organizers.

1. Budget and registration fees:

In Usyd’s tender document that Manfred Lenzen presented to Council in Sevilla, and also in Usyd’s final proposal sent 28 Oct 2008, the early-bird IIOA base fee was AU$ 550 (about US$ 370 according on the exchange rate at the time of final proposal submission (28 Oct 2008) and also your final approval (21 Nov 2008); around 1.50 AU$ for 1 US$ - see proposal budget row 18). This figure was based on the Citigate Hotel being the Conference Venue.

There were two developments that meant significant cost increases to Usyd, compared to the figures in Usyd’s final proposal.

1) When IIOA informed Usyd about Council’s decision to hold the 2010 Conference in Sydney, Council did not want to use a hotel as a venue. In an email to Usyd (15 Sep 2008) IIOA asked for cost implications to be made clear, which Usyd did in the final proposal, showing that the University of Sydney would be more expensive by about AU$ 53,000. Nevertheless, in an email 21 Nov 2008 Jan Oosterhaven informed Usyd that Council preferred the University as a venue. This change in venue translated into an increase of the proposed early-bird IIOA base fee from 550 AU$ (370 US$ at the time) to about 675 AU$ (450 US$ at the time).
2) The exchange rate at the time of costing the final proposal was around 1.50 AU$ for 1 US$, now it is around 1.08 AU$ for 1 US$. If Usyd had kept the registration fee constant in terms of AU$ (675 AU$), the registration fee in terms of US$ as of this week would have been 625 US$. If we followed IIOA’s yardstick of capping registration fees at 400 US$, Usyd would have racked up a shortfall of 225 US$ per delegate, which at a conference attendance of about 200 delegates would have meant a shortfall of about AU$ 48,600.

Anticipating such difficulties, the LOC at Usyd has been trying hard to cut cost. The major changes are:

- The LOC cancelled the contract with the professional conference organizer. Instead The LOC recruited volunteers, Sydney University has provided administrative assistance for organizational tasks, and Prof Manfred Lenzen was relieved from some of his normal tasks so he could be more involved in organizing the conference.
- The LOC changed the Welcome Reception modalities.
- The LOC removed the Internet café from the venue list, but instead delegates will be provided with wireless access passwords.
- The LOC reduced the excursion cost from 90 AU$ to 65 AU$.
- The LOC achieved about AU$ 50,000 sponsorship.

Note that the LOC could not make the conference dinner and excursion an optional item since there were minimum attendance limits, as well as fixed hire cost. The LOC then proposed the following compromise solution: The LOC stick to the conference fees set out in the final proposal, and agreed by IIOA (21 Nov 2008) based on Usyd’s final proposal (note the proposal did not include non-OECD fees).

IIOA members (including non-OECD countries) - Early Bird

AU$ 550

IIOA members (including non-OECD countries) - Standard Rate

AU$ 650

Non IIOA members from OECD-countries - Early Bird

AU$ 650

Non IIOA members from OECD-countries - Standard

AU$ 750

Non IIOA members outside OECD Early Bird

AU$ 550

Non IIOA members outside OECD - Standard

AU$ 650

Student Registration

AU$ 400

Guest (entitled to Welcome Reception, Dinner and Excursion)

AU$ 180

This way, the LOC absorbs the cost increase due to venue change (AU$ 53,000), but the LOC is not affected by the exchange rate hike.

All fees were subsequently lowered by AU$ 10.

 

2. Cancellation terms for registration fees

Given the need to secure and pay for venues and catering in advance, the issue of cancellation fees came up and was settled between LOC and IIOA as follows:

Up to 3 months prior to Conference

AU$ 50 per person handling fee

From 3 months prior to Conference

50% of total fee payable

From 1 month prior to Conference

100% of total fee payable

These were the hotel cancellation fees, with which the LOC conformed.

3. Non-member surcharge (55 / 110 US$):

The exchange rate fluctuations also posed a problem for the non-member surcharge that the LOC had to disburse to the IIOA. In agreement with IIOA, these surcharges were therefore fixed to 50 AU$ and 100 AU$, respectively.

Manfred Lenzen, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee

 

Preparation of the 19th International Input-Output Conference, June 12-18, 2010, Alexandria, Maryland, USA

In the summer of 2009, the IIOA Council decided that it wanted to follow up the Sydney conference with one in North America. After some deliberation and investigations, Alexandria, Virginia, was selected as the location for the 2011 International Input-Output Conference.

Alexandria is a historical town located across the river from Washington, DC: It is less than 15 minutes away by Metro. The conference venue is the Crowne Plaza Hotel of Old Town Alexandria. The hotel is an easy kilometer’s walk from Alexandria’s business district, which is known in the DC area for its quaint stores and many fine restaurants. Room rates, including taxes, are set at US$188 per room-night: there will be no extra cost for an extra person staying in the room and children under 17 are free. The rates are guaranteed to be the lowest available from the hotel for the duration of the conference. (Special rates through the IIOA for non-OECD participants will be available.) The conference fee will be less than US$350 for members.

The conference is planned to extend from June 12 to June 18, 2011. No mid-week excursion is presently envisioned, due to the proximity of a very broad variety of free-access activities in the area. But we anticipate offering a variety of courses on Sunday, June 19, targeted to both professionals at statistical agencies and academics who would like to better ground their methodological expertise.

Michael Lahr, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee

 

Report on the IIOA Newsletter

In 2009, the IIOA marked its second consecutive year of publishing a quarterly newsletter. The issues were released one month in advance of Economic Systems Research (ESR) issues. In this way, readers received a preview ESR’s upcoming articles, namely: February, May, August and November. In its most complete form, it included an editorial item; a feature article relating "Tales from the Input-Output World"; abstracts of input-output articles from journals related to our field, brief notes on key input-output frontiers and extensions; fast-breaking input-output research news; notices and links for relevant upcoming conferences; new releases of input-output databases (including links where possible); ongoing multinational research projects; job openings; teaching materials; etc.

The first issue of the year was a special issue in memory of W. W. Leontief on occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death. Thijs ten Raa opened the issue with an editorial on Leontief's legacy, which was followed by several contributions by our former president of the IIOA, Faye Duchin ("Remembering Wassily Leontief"); Debesh Chakraborty ("In memory of Wassily Leontief"); Clopper Almon ("Leontief stories") and Anne Carter ("The structure of Leontief's economics"). An old writing of Leontief's daughter Svetlana Leontief Alpers was reprinted for the occasion, too ("About my father"). Here, I would like to thank again all invited contributors to this special issue in memory of our beloved colleague Wassily W. Leontief, which is very much appreciated and without whom it would not have been possible.

The curious reader may find more detailed information on photos, drawings and many more at the Newsletter.

The second issue brought in a very valuable editorial by Jiemin Guo and Bent Thage about "Input-Output Tables and SNA as an integrate part of statistical and analytical tools", which was followed by an interesting report written by Elena Belova on the VIII Leontief Annual Conference organized by the ICSER Leontief Centre at Saint Petersburg (Russia). The third issue of the year was opened by IIOA President Jan Oosterhaven on the installation of three new IIOA Fellow Members, namely: Clopper Almon, Ronald E. Miller and Graham Pyatt and was benefited from the contribution of Brian Wixted on the "Innovation systems analyses and input-output economics" a special piece dedicated to the section Frontiers and Extensions. In this issue, the Newsletter also announced the publication of the new revised book of R. E. Miller and P. D. Blair's "Input-Output Analysis: Foundations and Extensions", which was followed by a reflective synopsis by the authors in the last issue of the year. In the fourth issue, there was an editorial devoted to the special issue of the journal Economic Systems Research volume 21(3) on "Carbon footprint and input-output analysis" written by Thomas O. Wiedmann and Manfred Lenzen. Joy Murray also collaborated in this issue in the form of a special writing dedicated to the section Tales from the Input-Output World.

I thank all remaining contributors without whom this second year of the Newsletter would not have been possible. And last but not least important, special thanks to Mike Lahr for his help in the final editing process of each issue.

During 2009, the list of e-mail addresses used by the editors has been notably improved. Around 15 to 20 days in advance to the release of each issue, a request e-mail was sent to the list of contributors asking them for relevant information on different items. Within the first 10 days of February, May, August and November of 2009, the editors sent an announcement to the same list informing about the availability of the issues at the front page of the IIOA website. Also, the messages were posted in the IIOA Message Board. The list of potential contributors is divided into two exclusive groups: IIOA members (484), and Statistical offices and other research institutes (241). The frequent mailing activity of the newsletter is also helps to update the list of IIOA members’ e-mail addresses. Finally, I would consider this second year of the IIOA Newsletter also successful with a more stabilized monthly average of around 300 visits to the IIOA Message Board announcement. Thanks to all of you for your support.

Newsletters can be downloaded from our website:

http://www.iioa.org/News-newsletters.htm

José M. Rueda-Cantuche, IIOA Newsletter Editor

 

Report on the Working Papers in Input-Output Economics (WPIOX)

Following a decision by the Council Meeting in Seville in July 2008, the Working Papers in Input-Output Economics (WPIOX) series was launched in October 2008. The archive is set up under the auspices of the IIOA and contains working papers in input-output economics as defined in its broadest sense. That is, studies that use data collections that are in the format of (or are somehow related to) input-output tables and/or employ input-output type of techniques as tools of analysis. The number of submissions in 2008 was 6 papers, and 13 papers were

submitted in 2009. Although this meant an increase, the number of submissions remained quite low. After a discussion in the Council Meeting in Sao Paulo in July 2009, it was suggested to increase the visibility of the WPIOX series. In line with that discussion, new submissions are now announced not only via the Message Board, but also on a current basis in the Newsletter with a very prominent reference box placed on the front page.

The Council may wish to discuss the need for further steps to draw attention to the WPIOX series, with a view to receiving many more submissions in the future, or alternatively to consider the viability of this initiative.

All the paper can be downloaded from our website:

http://www.iioa.org/Journal-working%20paper.htm

Erik Dietzenbacher and Bent Thage
Editors of the Working papers in Input-Output Economics

 

Report of the Webmaster

During the last year we continued updating and improving the IIOA web provisions. The main activity this past year was the installation of a standardized web-based submission system for conferences, which was built from scratch for the 2010 IIOA conference in Sydney. The application should make the work for local organizers and scientific chairs much easier and should provide quicker feedback to conference participants. We will review and improve the application after the Sydney conference.

We are also investigating creating webcasts from the teaching sessions and new communication tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

Klaus Hubacek, Webmaster, IIOA

 

Editor’s report

Volume 21, which appeared in 2009, contained 445 pages. This is 19 pages less than the annual page limit as agreed upon with our publisher Taylor & Francis. Issue 3 was a special issue devoted to contributions about the measurement and analysis of ‘carbon footprints’, a topic that generates a lot attention in both academic and policy circles. Tommy Wiedmann acted as the guest editor of this issue, supported by Manfred Lenzen. The publication of this special issue was advertised by a lead article in the quarterly Newsletter of the IIOA and a press release.

By the end of 2009, guest editor Bert Steenge and Bart Los had started working on a new special issue, to appear as issue 4 of Volume 22. It is devoted to applications of input-output analysis in studies of tourism issues. We have the intention to continue publishing one special issue per volume, attempting to explore new avenues for research using input-output techniques and increasing the awareness of Economic Systems Research in broader circles.

Overview of submissions and their status

  Number of papers
Year 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Rejected directly by the editors 14 9 3 3 9
Rejected because of referee reports 6 9 4 5 8
Withdrawn by the author(s) - - - - -
Currently with the referees 8 9 27 27 7
Currently with the author(s) for revision 8 6 4 4 15
Accepted for publication 6 7 4 2 3
Special issues 6 7 13 7 7
           
Total 48 47 54 48 49
           
Rejection rate (%)a 48 45 17 20 40
Acceptance rate (%)a 14 18 10 5 7
Remainder (%)a 38 37 73 76 52

a Percentages are based only on ordinary submissions, i.e. excluding the contributions to special issues. The remainder consists of submissions with the referees or with the author(s) for revision.

A detailed account of the submissions and their status on 1 January 2010 is given in Table 1. This table also allows for comparisons with the four years before. The main conclusion might be that the number of submissions has been fairly stable in recent times. The news (received in early 2010) that Economic Systems Research has been included in the influential Social Sciences Citation Index (part of Web of Science) will hopefully lead to an increasing number of high-quality submissions in the near future.

2009 was the first year for the new editorial team. We were assisted by Jodie Gonzalez Jennings, who received all new submissions and revisions, among many other things. Over the year, plans for an electronic submission system were discussed with our publisher Taylor & Francis. In the end of 2009, training sessions took place, to adapt the default set-up as much as possible to ESR's context. This led to the launch of the system in early 2010, which is expected to save time regarding manuscript handling. Furthermore, the members of the Editorial Board were involved in discussing options to deal with a problem that has become more paramount over recent years: it gets increasingly difficult to obtain referee reports in time. The Editorial Board members have agreed to help out in such situations. We welcomed Kurt Kratena, Yasuhide Okuyama, Ferran Sancho, Tommy Wiedmann and Yang Cuihong on the Editorial Board.

All IIOA-members and other scholars active in related fields are kindly invited to have their studies considered for publication!

Manfred Lenzen, Editor, Economic Systems Research

Bart Los, Co-Editor, Economic Systems Research

 

 

Report of the Treasurer

Due to the strategy followed by IIOA Treasury, the financial crisis had no impact on the assets of IIOA in 2009. The Treasury strategy aims at keeping assets liquid, achieving moderate interest, and minimizing risk of asset loss. IIOA does not undertake any form of speculative investments aimed at capital gains, not even if rating agencies issue excellent ratings for such investment products. The assets of the organization rose from around US$173,000 to about US$192,000. These assets finance travel grants for students’ participation at the IIOA

conferences and awards for scientific work. They also serve as a safety net for unexpected financial obligations arising from risks associated with the organization of IIOA conferences worldwide.

Auditing of the IIOA accounts continues to be conducted by Otto Kremser, the chartered accountant appointed in 2006, and Joachim Lamel who has served IIOA as auditor for many years. The financial report compiled by the treasurer is stated in US dollars while the majority of the IIOA expenditures accrue in Euros.

The financial report for 2009 indicates that projections for the fiscal year had been carefully pessimistic on both the revenues and the expenditures side. Thus, operations in 2009 lead to a surplus of US$17,600.

On the revenues side, membership contributions slightly increased from their 2008 levels. Interest revenue dropped to a negligible amount due to the global economic downturn. Royalty revenues increased further to US$40,620 as our journal Economic Systems Research continues to gain popularity. Refunds for the Seville conference (Non-member registration surcharge) were deferred from 2008 to January 2009 and therefore boost revenues by additional US$9,335 alongside the São Paulo conference refunds of US$2,732.

On the expenditure side, the cost of publishing the ESR journal dropped to zero. This waiver of costs resulted from the renegotiation of the contract with the publishing house. The expenses for Editorial assistance of US$5,000 for editing the ESR in 2009 were paid in December 2008 and thus are not displayed in the 2009 accounts. Mailing and postage costs virtually disappeared as IIOA adopted the electronic voting system (EVOS). EVOS also kept auditing and elections costs at levels of non-election years as no manual counting of ballots was required. The item Banking charges and tax on interest accrued decreased further since IIOA had fewer interest revenues in 2009 than in 2008. Administration expenses exclude all IT-related expenses and remained at their previous level at US$1,000. It shall be noted that this is less than 5 percent of what other scientific organizations with a comparable membership base spend. ICT expenses fell back to the regular maintenance expenditure level of US$5,581. Development of the new COPASS and EVOS systems was completed and invoiced only in 2010 and thus is not included in the 2009 figures. Conference expenses were at an expected level: they were higher than in previous years since the number of travel grants to students was doubled, and the conference location (Brazil) entailed higher travel costs for most Council members.

For 2010, IIOA Treasury expects a deficit. The revenues side is expected to remain strong. Royalties are conservatively estimated. Membership contributions are expected remain stable. ICT expenditure will increase to US$10,000 due to invoicing of the COPASS and EVOS software systems besides regular IT and web administration maintenance. Conference costs will stay at a high level, as 13 travel grants/subsidies for student members from non-OECD countries have been awarded, and the venue of the conference is very remote for a large number of Council members. A conservative estimate of the expenses for the Sydney conference amounts to US$57,000. Of these, US$25,000 will be travel grants for young scientists. US$5,000 will continue to be spent annually on assistance to the Editors of the ESR. Prizes and awards will amount to US$2,000 (Leontief Prize and Sir Richard Stone Prize).

Christof Paparella, Treasurer, IIOA

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