From November 15 to 17, Lars Peter Hansen, Professor at the University of Chicago who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, paid a visit to Shandong University on invitation to the Qilu Securities Institute for Financial Studies, and gave a lecture on "Confronting Uncertainty in a Changing Environment" on November 16. SDU President Zhang Rong met with Professor Hansen before the lecture. The lecture was hosted by Academician of Chinese Academy of Science, and SDU Professor Peng Shige.

In the lecture, Professor Hansen introduced the characteristics, the components and the perspectives of the uncertainty in economic analysis. "Uncertainty can be risk and ambiguity and it can be analyzed from two perspectives: outside the model and inside the model," he said. Professor Hansen listed the evidences from macroeconomic data and financial market data to show the importance of uncertainty studies. He stated the impact of uncertainty and broadened the notion of uncertainty. Finally he gave a brief summary of the speech. After the lecture, Prof. Hansen answered the questions from the audience.

Lars Peter Hansen is the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor of economics at the University of Chicago, best known for his work on the Generalized Method of Moments. He is also a distinguished macroeconomist, one of the Chicago school of economics, focusing on the linkages between the financial and real sectors of the economy. In 2013, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, jointly with Robert J. Shiller and Eugene F. Fama.

From his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, it can be seen that there is a common interest research field between Prof. Hansen and the group led by Professor Peng Shige: How to understand the uncertainty in economics and finance.

Written by Xu Zhenyu

Photo by Xu Tiantian

Source: the Qilu Securities Institute for Financial Studies

Edited by Xie Tingting