On 12th July 2016, Prof. Finn E. Kydland – 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economics paid a visit and gave a talk to students at National Economics University on the occasion of his trip to Vietnam to participate in the Conference “Basic Science and Society”. Attending the talk, from NEU, there were Prof. Dr. Tran Tho Dat - President, Assoc Prof. Dr. Pham Hong Chuong - Vice President. There were also attendance of distinguished guests including scientists, lecturers and students from NEU and other universities and institutes in Hanoi.
At the meeting with Prof. Finn E. Kydland prior to the talk, Prof. Dr. Tran Tho Dat warmly welcomed Professor Kydland to visit NEU and congratulated his achievements. Prof. Dr. Tran Tho Dat also thanked to him for spending time give a talk to lecturers and students of NEU. Prof Finn E.Kydland appreciated prestigie and training quality of NEU. He also expressed his pleasure to visit NEU and give a talk to lecturers and students there.
During the talk, Prof. Finn E. Kydland talk about the topics relating to economic policies and sustainable growth, implication to establishing and managing macro economic policies of Vietnam such as inflation, public debt, free trade and global economic integration, and emerging issue as BREXIT. According to Prof. Kydland, in the long run, nations become more prosperous, in the sense of higher percapita incomes, lower unemployment, lower poverty levels, and so on, the fewer road blocks lie in the way of steadily higher productivity, along with growing productive capacity to take advantage of productivity increase. In large parts of the world today, however, the business environment is characterized by an extent of uncertainty that is unprecedented over the past several decades. The main reason is lack of clarity in economic policy making. In order to be properly informed and well founded, important growth-promoting decisions, such as innovative activity, investment in new productive capacity, choice of new markets, and so on, require an assessment - an expectation - of the policy environment years into the future. Important policy dimensions are tax policy, spending and debt policy, extent of trade restrictions, and the regulatory environment in general. Based on economic theory, the increase in policy uncertainty over the past decade was quite predictable. The talk will expound onthe fundamental reasons. Contexts from various parts of the world, such as China, the United States, and members of the euro zone, are used as illustrations.
Prof. Finn E. Kydland (1943), a Norwegian economist, is a professor of University of California (Santa Barbara, USA) and Chairman of Jeffrey Hanley Foundation. Prof. Finn E. Kydland accompanying with GS Edward Prescott were awarded 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economics for “their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles”. They showed that economic policies are often plagued by problems of time inconsistency, demonstrated that society could gain from prior commitment to economic policy, introduced new ideas about economic policy design and the driving forces behind business cycles.