Knowledge that Transforms

THE WORLD CONGRESS OF THE ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY, which takes place once every five years, is arguably the most far-reaching global conference for economics and related fields. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Executive Committee of the Society together with Bocconi University decided to lead the way into then-unchartered territory and organize a ground-breaking international virtual economics conference in record time during a very difficult period. Past President Orazio Attanasio, as Chair of the World Congress Organization and Main Lectures Committees, deserves credit for convincing many of the parties involved that this was the correct decision for the Society to take. The resulting event, though not without its challenges and flaws, posted record-breaking attendance, reaching more than 4200 people across 85 countries and 24 time zones, and presenting 73 live-streamed plenary, semi-plenary, and policy sessions and 1288 contributed presenters in 334 2-hour sessions with 14 hours of daily of continuous live content during five full days. Unfortunately, COVID-19 continued to ravage the world for the rest of 2020 until the present, upending most of the Society’s plans. For that reason, incoming President Penny Goldberg assembled an ad-hoc Virtual and Hybrid Conferences Committee chaired by At-large Executive Committee member Dirk Bergemann and made up of other Executive Committee members and representatives from the six regional standing committees. The menu of virtual tools and practical solutions for the organization of such meetings that this committee provided, together with a tremendous amount of work by committed program chairs, local organizers, and many volunteers, allowed the Society to hold all of its six scheduled regional meetings and two of its schools to date. In addition, it is anticipated that the final three 2021 regional meetings and its international school will also be completed by the end of the year. Most meetings were conducted entirely virtually, except in the case of Africa, whose regional meeting and companion school took place using a hybrid format, with some participants physically present in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) but many others attending online, a model that was also used by the Asian Summer School in Econometrics and Statistics that recently took place in Beijing. The Society owes special debts of gratitude to the officers and members of its regional standing committees, program chairs, local organizers, virtual vendors, and all those who helped it continue to meet its mission during such trying times. In addition to its meetings, the Society continued its other core activities, most notably ensuring publication of the Society’s flagship journal, Econometrica, and its two highly-rated open access journals, Quantitative Economics and Theoretical Economics. The editors of these journals, Chris Taber and Ran Spiegler, respectively, completed their terms at the end of June, 2021 and two new editors stepped in to take their places – Stéphane Bonhomme, who moved from editor of the Monograph Series to Quantitative Economics editor, and Simon Board, who took the helm at Theoretical Economics. The

2019 THROUGH MID-2020 SAW A PERIOD in which management decisions made by the Executive Committee the previous two years began to produce positive financial results, leaving the Econometric Society in its strongest financial position yet. The new royaltybased contract with Wiley Publishers combined with membership fee enhancements, robust membership drives, and solid investment returns even during a tumultuous market, put the Society in good shape to weather any future challenges. The new contract between Wiley and the Econometric Society went into effect in 2019. In 2019, the Society earned total institutional journal revenues of $721,383 compared to $698,010 the previous year. However, both figures include deferred revenues no longer accruing as a result of the new royalty-based contract. For 2019, real institutional publishing revenues came to $509,613 for the first full year under the new contract while $211,770 in deferred revenues was carried over from previous years. In exchange, henceforth Wiley will cover the cost of printing, distributing and disseminating the Econometric society journals. Unfortunately, 2019’s promising year-end results are unlikely to continue through 2020 given the onset of COVID-19. Universities and research centers’ libraries (all of which make up the bulk of institutional sales) all project no or very low growth for the remainder of 2020 so future institutional revenues are expected to compress. Membership revenues fared well too. In 2019, the Society added additional subscription rate options to its membership categories; increased rates across all categories; and for the first time added an auto-renew option for membership purchases. As a result of these changes, the number of year-end memberships (see the Secretary’s report for membership statistics) and total membership revenues increased substantially. Membership revenues jumped from $585,349 at end-of-year 2018 to $680,253 at end-of-year 2019, an increase of $94,904. The Society continued its relationship with Wells Fargo for its day-to-day banking and credit card processing, and with Vanguard to manage its investments. At the same time, the Society’s Investment Committee adjusted its investment strategy and saw gains emerge. By end-of-year 2019, the Society’s Central office investment holdings rose from end-of-year 2018 holdings of 2,357,604 to 2019 end-of-year holdings of $3,331,812, although part of the increase resulted from the transfer of $500,000 from Wells Fargo. The regional account totals, however, went from 2018 combined holdings of $613,413 to 2019 end-of-year holdings of $544,590. While the European region holds the majority of regional funds, Africa, Asia, Australasia, and Latin America’s regional accounts are subsidized by annual grants available to help with activities for young economists. A fundraising initiative for young African scholars was launched in June 2019, bringing in close to $30,000 through generous donations from the Society’s fellows and general membership base. The Society will continue to grow its Fund for African Scholars. The

Firms and governments often use R&D contests to incentivize suppliers to develop and deliver innovative products. The optimal design of such contests depends on empirical primitives: the cost of research, the uncertainty in outcomes, and the surplus participants capture. Can R&D contests in real‐world settings be redesigned to increase social surplus? I ask this question in the context of the Department of Defense's Small Business Innovation Research program, a multistage R&D contest. I develop a structural model to estimate the primitives from data on R&D and procurement contracts. I find that the optimal design substantially increases social surplus, and simple design changes in isolation (e.g., inviting more contestants) can capture up to half these gains; however, these changes reduce the DOD's own welfare. These results suggest there is substantial scope for improving the design of real‐world contests but that a designer must balance competing objectives.