Governance Committee Report (June 2012)
ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY
REPORT OF THE GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE
June 15, 2012
Following consultation with the Executive Committee, Bengt Holmström, President of the Econometric Society in 2011, established a Governance Committee to review all aspects of the governance of the Society with the final aim of making a proposal to change the Society’s Constitution and to pave the way for the Society’s incorporation.
The Committee is chaired by Oliver Hart (Harvard University). The other members are Tim Besley (London School of Economics), Hongbin Cai (Peking University), George Mailath (University of Pennsylvania), Rosa Matzkin (UCLA), and Enrique Sentana (CEMFI), with Rafael Repullo (CEMFI, Executive Vice-President until June 30, 2012) acting as secretary, and Hyun Shin (Princeton University, Executive Vice-President from July 1, 2012) as observer.
This document summarizes the current governance arrangements and puts forward our proposals to the Executive Committee. A preliminary draft was posted in the Society’s website for discussion among the Fellows.
The spirit of the proposed changes is to enhance the global nature of the Society by increasing the geographical representation in the composition of the Council and to raise the involvement of the Council in the governance of the Society by increasing the participation of Council members in the Executive Committee and in the Nominating Committees. Although the voting power of the Fellows would remain unchanged, we propose that Society members directly elect some members of the Regional Standing Committees.
The document is structured in eight sections covering the key elements of the current governance arrangements together with our reform proposals.
