¡Adiós Jana!

Posted by admin on Dec 22, 2010 in All, Study abroad | 0 comments

Our dear friend and colleague, Jana, who has been with this website from its very beginning is now leaving for her international exchange. She will stay and study for one semester in Mexico, and we all wish her a very pleasant experience. Have fun, Jana! We will miss you.

European Study Research – Barcelona

Posted by admin on May 2, 2010 in All, Attractions, Campus/Faculty, Food/Drinks/Fun, Student Associations, Study abroad | 0 comments

The European Study Research (ESR) is organized twice a year from the EBF in cooperation with the Faculty of Economics and Business. A committee consisting of five members is selected and with their help a location is found to which the journey could go to.

25 motivated 2nd and 3rd year students are selected by interviewing them and let them talk about their motives why they would like to join. Together with two teachers of the faculty, the preparation phase starts eight weeks before departure. 

Are you hot to go?! Study Abroad in Montreal

Posted by admin on Dec 27, 2009 in All, Study abroad | 0 comments

“JMSB is hot to go. H-O-T… T-O… G-O, are you hot to go, are you hot to go?”

This was the battle cry that welcomed me heartily on my first day at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Back then, I could not even imagine how often I will be singing this slogan and how familiar it will become.

We are lucky to cooperate with Shanghai and Osaka Universities

Posted by admin on Nov 15, 2009 in All, Campus/Faculty, Current students, Student life, Study abroad | 0 comments

At the beginning of this month I took a flight from Shanghai Pudong to Osaka Kansai Airport.  Shanghai is a fascinating city with a lively investment activity. In May 2010 the World Expo will be opened. Moreover, the Disney Cooperation announced a 3.6 billion US dollar investment in Disney China in Shanghai. In short, Shanghai is the place to be and our faculty is lucky to be able to cooperate with Fudan University.  Both the School of Economics and the School of Management of Fudan University  are willing to increase the exchange and cooperation activities with our faculty. Osaka is a city like Shanghai and hosted the World Expo in the early 1970s. To some extent Japan and China are comparable in economic development, although a difference in phase clearly exists. Japan is a country with extreme high living standards: in terms of income, safety, and social security. China, on the other hand, is developing, having a skewed income distribution, and a real market economy, without over-attention for social security.

Top 3 in Japan
The University of Groningen has a very good relation with the University of Osaka. This university is a top-3 university in Japan and has an excellent reputation in medicine, science and engineering. In economics and business the undergraduate training is somewhat separated from the graduate programs, both institutionally and geographically.  The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) is located on the Suita Campus and is only involved in graduate and PhD-training. Professors teach only one course per year and ISER is largely a research institute. The famous economist Morishima has founded ISER and well-known economists like Uzawa, Inada and Horioka have worked or still work at ISER.  My co-author Kazuo Ogawa worked at ISER for the last 15 years. It was a true pleasure to be back at ISER since my last visit in 2005. We work together on a rather new model of financial fragility of Japanese firms and discussed a first draft of a paper that presents the results. Hopefully we can present the paper at the upcoming NBER-conference in Tokyo next June. (Link: http://www.nber.org/)