AEDE Professor Mario Javier Miranda recently returned from the Central Bank of Costa Rica where he presented a week-long workshop from December 3-7, 2012 focused on computational economic dynamics. Professor Miranda was invited to teach the workshop at the Central Bank by Roger Madrigal, Chief Economist of the Central Bank, who earned his doctorate degree from AEDE in 2004.
The goal of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of the Research Department of the Central Bank on their skills in building dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models of the Costa Rican economy. The Research Department aims to use these models in performing economic and monetary policy analysis on national and regional scales.
The computational economic dynamics workshop was the first in a series of two workshops to be taught by Professor Miranda at the Central Bank of Costa Rica. He will return to the country in February 2013 to deliver the second week of the workshop. In addition, during this visit, he is scheduled to give a presentation at La Academia de Centroamerica on “The World Food Price Crisis and International Food Security”.
La Academia de Centroamerica is an economic think-tank headquartered in Costa Rica that is highly respected throughout Latin America. The organization has produced over 100 books and monographs addressing pressing economic issues affecting Central America. La Academia de Centroamerica was co-founded in 1969 by Claudio Gonzalez-Vega, who recently retired from AEDE as a professor after 18 years of service to the department, and Miguel Angel Rodriguez, a noted economist and President of the Republic of Costa Rica from 1998 to 2002.
During his visit Professor Miranda also attended a reception at La Academia de Centroamerica in honor of Edna Camacho. Ms. Camacho, who earned her MS degree from AEDE in 1993, was recently elected President of the Board of Directors and Chief Research Economist of La Academia de Centroamerica. With this appointment she succeeds Luis Mesalles, who earned his doctorate degree from AEDE in 1991, in this role.
Professor Miranda's research focuses on computational modeling of stochastic and dynamic economic systems with applications to agricultural risk management, catastrophic insurance and reinsurance, agricultural and environmental policy, and microfinance and insurance in developing countries. He joined the department in 1988 and, in addition to his teaching and research, Professor Miranda has served as a consultant to the World Bank, numerous private corporations, and several USDA branches, including the Office of the Chief Economist, the Economic Research Service, Risk Management Agency, and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.
December 13, 2012