AUA Participates in Armenian Economic Association Annual Conference, Takes Home Awards

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YEREVAN, Armenia – From June 19-21, 2015, the American University of Armenia (AUA), jointly with the Central Bank of Armenia and Yerevan State University, hosted the Armenian Economic Association (AEA) annual conference. During the conference, economists from Armenia, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Georgia, Netherlands, Spain, Norway and the United Kingdom presented their papers and session proposals in areas such as economic data and statistics, agriculture, finance, international trade, economic development, macro and microeconomics, migration, political economics, and more.

AUA is delighted to announce that during the Best Paper Award ceremony, Dr. Vardan Baghdasaryan, a professor in the College of Business and Economics received the Armen Alchyan Award for his paper entitled, “Electoral Fraud and Voter Turnout: Experimental Study.” The paper experimentally investigates the consequences of electoral fraud on voter turnout. The results suggest that limited fraud may in fact increase the participation, whereas whenever extensive interventions are applied, voters respond more than just strategically. Contrary to theoretically predicted drastic decreases in participation, the group against which the fraud is applied votes even more than before.

Davit Adunts, a student in the Master of Science in Economics program, was awarded the Grigior Artsruni Award for his paper entitled, “Social Norms of Distributive Justice and Kuznets Curve.” The paper examines the impact of social ranking of distributive justice norms on wealth distribution mechanism within a country. 

The Armenian Economic Association was founded in 2006. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting Armenian scholarship in economics. The aim of the AEA includes contributing to the development of economics education, encouraging research and study of economic activity, developing and promoting cooperation among academic, private, and public sector researchers and discussing other economics related issues. For more details refer to http://aea.am/conferences.html. 

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia and affiliated with the University of California. AUA provides a global education in Armenia and the region, offering high-quality, graduate and undergraduate studies, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting public service and democratic values.