President's Report (2012)
Econometrica, Vol. 81, No. 4 (July, 2013), 1707–1710
THE ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY 2012 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT
ON DECEMBER 11, 2012, the Econometric Society was incorporated as a Delaware non-stock, non-profit corporation. This had been decided by the Ex- ecutive Committee in 2011, when we realized that the name of the Society was not protected.
My predecessor Bengt Holmström seized this opportunity to re-examine the governance arrangements of the Society. He appointed a Governance Com- mittee, chaired by Oliver Hart, to review all aspects of the governance of the Society.
In April 2012, the Governance Committee posted a preliminary report for discussion by the Fellows. The report summarized our current governance ar- rangements and proposed a series of amendments, including a draft of the By-Laws that would replace the Society’s Constitution, as needed for incor- poration. In August 2012, the Executive Committee discussed the proposed By-Laws and made a few changes, taking into accounts the comments made by the Fellows. The final version of the By-Laws was approved by the Council and ratified by an overwhelming majority of the Fellows in November 2012.
As described by Bengt Holmström in his presidential report (that was pub- lished in the November 2012 issue of Econometrica), the By-Laws kept intact almost everything that was in the Constitution. The main changes are intended to increase the geographical representation and the engagement of the Coun- cil, and the transparency of the Society. For the first time, Society members will be able to participate in the election of Regional Standing Committees, start- ing in 2014. The Executive Committee is currently working on a revision of our Rules and Procedures that describe more precisely the governance of the So- ciety. A preliminary version of these Rules and Procedures is available on the Society’s website. They will be discussed in the next meeting of the Executive Committee in Gothenburg during the next European Summer Meeting.
