Richmond professor addressing 200+ postgraduate students

Dr Parviz Dabir-Alai, professor of economics at the Richmond Business School, spent the best part of Friday 8th November at a by-invitation-only event sponsored by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. He was part of a 3-person panel discussing the challenges of achieving economic development via technological progress in low-income and fragile states. Dr Dabir-Alai’s fellow panellists were Dr Chris Foster (Manchester University) and Professor Jon Crowcroft (Cambridge University). The panel was chaired superbly by Ms Sarah Laessig, a Commissioner, at the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. The event, held at the iconic QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, attracted hundreds of postgraduate students with the majority being doctoral students in universities across the UK.

The wide-ranging discussion addressed the importance of trade, good governance, innovation and risk, learning from ‘agile’ states, labour market flexibility and regulation, and many other issues within the context of the impact of technological change.