{"693570":{"#nid":"693570","#data":{"type":"news","title":"International Economics Forum Moves to Georgia Tech","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Forum for Research in Empirical International Trade (FREIT), an important organizer of global economics conferences, is now housed in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech\u2019s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, giving the School increased visibility on a global scale.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe organization, led by Georgia Tech Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iac.gatech.edu\/people\/person\/tibor-besedes\u0022\u003ETibor Besede\u0161\u003C\/a\u003E, has organized 92 conferences in eleven countries over its 32 years of existence. Economists from 400 institutions have presented approximately 1,300 papers at FREIT events.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe roughly 850 economists who have presented or discussed a paper at a FREIT conference are not only trade economists in the narrow sense. They referee our papers, sit on editorial boards, write outside letters for our promotion cases, serve on grant panels, and advise the students we would like to recruit. Their sense of where Georgia Tech sits among economics departments is formed largely by incidental exposure, and there is now a good deal more of it,\u201d Besede\u0161 said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor instance, the move means Georgia Tech will be named as the coordinating institution at FREIT\u2019s upcoming conferences in Melbourne, Australia; Astana, Kazakhstan; Sardinia, Italy; Bloomington, Indiana; Seoul, Korea; and Tokyo.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFREIT, founded in 1994 at Purdue University, also holds a best graduate student paper competition every year at two of its conferences, the U.S.-based Empirical Investigations in International Trade and the Sardinian Empirical Trade Conference.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPast winners have come from Oxford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, Maryland, Brown, NYU, and Vanderbilt, among others. Many are now faculty presenting at the same conferences, Besede\u0161 said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFor me, the work is administrative rather than glamorous \u2014 coordinating seven conferences a year, maintaining the website, running the mailing list, and keeping the submission process working,\u201d he said. \u201cThe compensation is that I see every paper submitted to every FREIT conference, which is a reasonable vantage point from which to watch a field. I get to see what the new ideas are, who are the new people entering the field, and I play a small role in helping shape both.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information about FREIT, visit the organization\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/freit.org\/\u0022\u003Ewebsite\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Forum for Research in Empirical International Trade is now housed in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Economics.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Forum for Research in Empirical International Trade is now housed in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Economics."}],"uid":"34600","created_gmt":"2026-10-28 14:25:39","changed_gmt":"2026-10-28 14:29:07","author":"mpearson34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-10-28T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-10-28T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681577":{"id":"681577","type":"image","title":"freit-logo--1-.jpg","body":null,"created":"1793197546","gmt_created":"2026-10-28 14:25:46","changed":"1793197546","gmt_changed":"2026-10-28 14:25:46","alt":"\u0022\u0022","file":{"fid":"265998","name":"freit-logo--1-.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/10\/28\/freit-logo--1-.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/10\/28\/freit-logo--1-.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":134630,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/10\/28\/freit-logo--1-.jpg?itok=2xqGUK5c"}}},"media_ids":["681577"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1282","name":"School of Economics"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMichael Pearson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIvan Allen College of Liberal Arts\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}