TIME: The Impact on Modern Economies
Time is one of the most important things in our lives. Whether it is used in high-frequency trading to abuse arbitrage or in creating a tight flight schedule for an airport; in our everyday lives we can find its consequences everywhere. Of course, time is also applicable to the field of Econometrics, Operations Research & Actuarial Sciences. Put even stronger, this field of study has time as one of its determining factors. Profitting from imbalance in the price by arbitrage, using operations research to be able to deliver faster than competitors and calculating the risk of time in order to profit from the insurance business are just mere examples of time within this sector.
The theme ‘TIME’ stresses the importance of this concept within our field of study and suits change in how the world gets faster and faster. Therefore, it is extremely suitable as a theme for the VESTING Conference 2019.
First of all, time plays a crucial role within the sector of econometrics. An obvious example of time within this field is profitting from imbalance in the price by arbitrage, where succes depends on speed of rading. However, one might also think of dynamic econometrics where data is used in modelling expected economic trends. The applications of econometrics are uncountable due to the tendency of economy to highly fluctuate over time.
Secondly, there has been a remarkable development within the field of operations research. Taking the Netherlands as an example, retailers are competing for customers by minimizing the delivery time. This results in a growing need for operations research experts in order to live up to these promises and remain competitive .
Thirdly, the work of actuarial science experts is based on the concept of time. The availability of big data has offered this sector to improve analysing certain risks and acting upon them. Take insurances as an example. The availability of larger streams of information on customer behaviour has led to price differentiability among the products an insurer has to offer. By being able to analyse the behaviour of clients more accurately, the insurer is able to be better in calculating the risk of time, which is an opportunity most interesting for the insurer.
All in all, we can conclude that time has greatly influenced the field of Econometrics, Operations Research and Actuarial Sciences and remains to do so today. Logistics, insurances and trade in securities are just mere examples we touched upon, but a great deal of other occasions of time within these sectors remain unspoken of. We, the VESTING Conference Committee, hope to touch upon those topics during the VESTING Conference 2019.