What's On at UWA

Microcredit programs are widely promoted by governments and non-governmental organisations in many developing countries, as a means to alleviate poverty through income generation activities. BRAC, which was established in 1972, is currently the largest non-governmental organisation operating in the world. In this lecture Professor Burgess will discuss his research on an impact evaluation of BRAC programs which try to promote entrepreneurship amongst the ultra-poor, both in Bangladesh and in sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Burgess is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Organisation and Public Policy Programme at the London School of Economics. His areas of research interest include development economics, public economics, political economy, labor economics and environmental economics.

RSVP http://www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

Come down and catch up with a monthly sundowner for GMA members held on the second Friday of each month.

Cost $10 per person (includes finger food and Bar tab for 1-2 hours)

Recent media attention has focused on the comparative lack of philanthropy from Australia's highest earners. Our wealthy non-givers have been described as "morally bankrupt" and displaying "utter greed and selfishness". Are Australia's high net worth really that bad? Why aren't they giving? Should they give more? And what would encourage them to do so?

This lecture will present the findings of a 2010 study on giving among Australia's high and ultra-high net worth individuals, comparing them to their international counterparts and identifying strategies to encourage more of them to give - and the givers to give more.

Vanessa Meachen has been overseeing Philanthropy Australia's policy, research and training activities since 1998. Vanessa provides research and information services to Philanthropy Australia members and the wider community, including national and international trusts and foundations, politicians and policy makers, charities and the media.

To register visit www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

Up to twelve Scholarships for Honours, Masters and PhD students at the UWA Business School are available each year, valued from $20,000 up to $153,000.

For information about the scholarships, join us and senior BHP Billiton representatives for an Information Evening. Networking and refreshments will be available after the session.

To register visit www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

Drop in for some Career Advice

UWA opens up the whole campus to the public.

Come and find out about the courses on offer, valuable research, community programs, and facilities...all mixed with a day full of lots of fun activities for everyone!

‘On the couch with the recruiter session’ is targeted at postgraduate students, although all students are welcome.

Discover what you need to know about being competitive in the market place - academia, government and industry. Be prepared to ask questions about resumes, pre interview, interview and post interview tips/general etiquette in job searching and acceptance.

Recruiters from KPMG, Department of Mines & Petroleum (Commerce, State Development) and an academic representative will be available to answer your questions.

The workshop helps you to understand how to increase your effectiveness and outcomes in the following key areas: how you deal with your supervisor how you structure your study time your attitude (or lack thereof!) in relation to your research dealing with writer’s block or having difficulty writing getting the help you need when you are stuck juggling multiple commitments and never having enough time keeping on going when the going gets tough

The 2011 Marshall-Warren lecture will be delivered by Michael Spence, Winner of the Nobel 2001 Prize in Economic Sciences with Joseph E. Stiglitz and George A. Akerlof.

In this lecture, Professor Spence will explore the main arguments of his book 'The Next Convergence'. This will appeal to those with an interest in world events and current affairs, economics and finance.

Michael Spence is a Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and was the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development.

The Marshall-Warren Lecture Series honours UWA Professor Barry J Marshall and Emeritus Professor J Robin Warren, joint recipients of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their ground-breaking discovery about stomach ulcers and their bacterial basis.

This lecture series honours their significant achievement by bringing other Nobel Laureates to UWA who will share the excitement of their research with our community.

Cost: Free, however booking is essential. Book through the UWA Octagon Theatre Box Office (08) 6488 2440, M-F, noon-4.15pm

In this lecture Professor Rao will discuss some of his research on behavioral aspects of pricing. The lecture will focus on three concepts -

1) The usual measurement of WTP using a conjoint utility model may be biased due to the presence of informational effect of price

2) Experimental results showing that the informational effect of price is not trivial to ignore

3) Incentive-compatible measurement procedures recently developed to measure the WTP for different levels of attributes.

Professor Rao will also describe the impact of informational effects of price on marketing resources allocation for a product.

Professor Vithala R. Rao holds a PhD in applied economics/marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has published over 125 papers on several topics including conjoint analysis and multidimensional scaling and choice modeling.

Dr Parkinson was appointed Secretary to the Treasury in March 2011. He is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Australian Office of Financial Management, and member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Board of Taxation, the Board of Infrastructure Australia and the Council of Financial Regulators. Dr Parkinson previously served as Secretary to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency from its establishment in 2007. Prior to that, he was Executive Director of Macroeconomic Group in the Treasury. Dr Parkinson holds a PhD from Princeton University, a MEc from the Australian National University and a BEc (Hons) from the University of Adelaide. To register visit http://www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

On a size-adjusted basis, economics is more important in Australia than many other countries including the US and the UK. As part of UWA’s long history of producing economists who go on to have successful careers, the new Economist Lecture Series fills a gap in the understanding of what an economics degree can lead to. The lectures provide an appreciation of the value placed on the degree by business, government, academia, etc., supply insights into what economists actually do in practice and offer guidance to future opportunities for aspiring economists.

Prominent leaders who commenced their careers with a degree in economics will present the lectures to the UWA community. Stephen Miller is a Managing Director at BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager. Stephen is Head of Australian and New Zealand Fixed Income and Cash and part of the Lead Portfolio Management Group for European and non-US Fixed Income.

Stephen graduated with a First Class Honours degree from UWA in 1983 and began his career in Canberra with the Federal Treasury in the same year. He subsequently joined the private staff of the then Federal Treasurer, the Hon Paul Keating MP, in 1985. Stephen completed his Masters Degree in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1989 before returning to Sydney to take up a position at Bankers Trust. At Bankers Trust (later Principal Global Investors) he held a number of positions in New York and Sydney before being made Head of the Domestic and International Fixed Income Investment team. In 2002 he assumed his current role at what was Merrill Lynch Investment Managers now BlackRock.

This seminar will introduce the ideas and concepts of:

1)Economics – interest rates, exchange rates, loan markets

2)Banking and the resources industry

3)Banking and diversity in the workplace

Presenters:

Damon Goodall - Senior Dealer, Global Markets, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Stephen Wray - Vice President, Natural Resources, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Madeleine Long - Vice President, Government, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

RSVP: [email protected]

With the possibility of a double-dip recession in the US and sovereign debt crisis facing the EU, UWA experts in finance and economics will assess the case for optimism and answer your questions on the future of the local, national and global economy at an open public forum. Find out whether there is indeed a case for optimism!

Presenters and topics covered:

Winthrop Professor Ken Clements BHP Billiton Research Fellow and Head of Economics (Prospects for the Australian Dollar )

Winthrop Professor Raymond da Silva Rosa Head of Accounting and Finance (The Case for Optimism? Lessons from the ‘Nanny Market Economies’)

Winthrop Professor Richard Heaney Professor of Finance (The GFC and Australian Superannuation Fund Performance)

RSVP: www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

The Business School holds regular information evenings for its MBA and EMBA programs.

We invite you to attend one of our upcoming information evenings which will give you the opportunity to learn about the programs on offer, to discuss your study options, meet Business School staff and have all your questions answered before applying for your chosen course.

The events are free with refreshments provided.

Register: http://www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/news/infoevenings

Join Jonathan Holloway, the Artistic Director of Perth International Arts Festival 2012-2015, as he outlines the benefits the Festival will provide to the Perth arts and business community in the coming years. He will discuss how he was instrumental in the transformation of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival turning it into a financial success and the benefits it brought to the city. He will also discuss his plans for Perth International Arts Festival as it celebrates its 60th festival in 2012 and over the next four years.

Before coming to Perth Jonathan spent six years as Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in the UK. Under his stewardship, the festival and its city were transformed: Norwich tripled ticket sales, turnover increased by over 600% and audiences increased from 35,000 to 330,000, becoming the fourth largest city-based festival in the UK.

Jonathan’s vision for Perth is to draw visitors to the city and the Perth Festival with world-class artists and performances, to nurture the arts roots of the region as well as offer a program of international and regional artistic exchanges and to increase ticket sales by engaging those who do not traditionally engage with arts festivals, using accessible programming and participation.

Presented in association with Perth International Arts Festival and supported by the UWA Business School

For bookings please contact Club Reception on 6488 8770 or visit www.universityclub.uwa.edu.au

Members $45/Guests $55 Or $450 for a table of 10

Price includes a sit down two-course breakfast and presentation.

The Postgraduate and Honours Expo showcases a host of opportunities for further study, including honours and postgraduate coursework and research possibilities.

Discover the courses each faculty has to offer, learn about postgraduate scholarships, attend information sessions and talk to staff, honours and postgraduate students.

For more information about the Expo along with details on the presentations being held throughout the evening please go uwa.edu.au/postgradexpo

Social change, an understanding of impact investing and the potential it holds to mobilise capital beyond traditional government and charitable monies, is becoming critical.

Impact investors seeking a blended financial and social return are increasingly active in mobilising capital to address community needs around the world fuelling a demand for new innovative financial vehicles and products that appeal to them while garnering support from cross sectoral collaborations.

Presenter: Kylie Charlton Social Investment Fellow, The Centre for Social Impact(CSI)

Kylie holds the position of Social Investment Fellow at The Centre for Social Impact (CSI) where she is actively involved in looking at the development of a system of social finance in Australia.

RSVP: www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/eventregistration

There is much talk in Australia at present about the need to increase participation in paid work and productivity, and at the same time increase Australia’s population. This conversation is partly driven by the prospect of an ageing population, and transformation in Australia’s employment base away from agriculture and manufacturing to service sector jobs. Given what we know about how Australian workers are experiencing their jobs at present, and their aspirations in terms of working hours, what can we expect of their participation patterns in the future, their ability to do more with less and increase productivity, and the prospects for increased fertility rates? What more can we expect of Australian workers. In this presentation Barbara will draw on the past five years of work-life research at the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia, to address these questions.

Professor Barbara Pocock is Director of the Centre for Work + Life at University of South Australia. She trained as an economist and has a doctorate in gender studies. She has researched work, employment and industrial relations in Australia for over thirty years with particular interests in gender, inequality and worker voice. She has authored numerous books, articles and book chapters. Her latest book, Living Low Paid: The Dark Side of Prosperous Australia was written with Helen Masterman-Smith and published by Allen & Unwin. Her next book Time Bomb: Where Is Our Working Life Taking Us? (co-authored with Natalie Skinner and Philippa Williams, will be published by UNSW Press in early 2012.

Seats are limited so please RSVP by Friday 14 October to Sarah Thoms (64883757) or [email protected]

The Role of Private Equity in the Mining Industry

1)Private equity - what is it?

2)How does private equity work?

3)Myths - the perception

4)Facts- the reality?

These are some of the questions to be answered at a time when companies big and small are seeking alternative funding arrangements to the banks.

RSVP : [email protected]