The Young Scholars Initiative (YSI)’s Latin America and Complexity Economics Working Groups, in association with the Latin American Network for Research on Services (REDLAS) would like to invite young scholars to submit their work to the Workshop YSI/REDLAS “Innovation and New Technologies in Moderning Services: Opportunities and challenges for Productivity in Latin America and Caribbean”. This activity is part of the 8th REDLAS Conference which is going to take place between the 17th and 18th of October at Universidad EAN in Bogota, Colombia. On 16th October, YSI in partnership with REDLAS will organize a special one-day workshop when selected young scholars will have the opportunity to present their researches related to services and the impact of new technologies to the economic system to selected mentors. The idea is to promote a knowledge-building environment based on the exchange between senior professors and students. Partial travel stipends is available for selected young scholars.
For the YSI workshop, the organizers invite young scholars to submit a paper proposal on one of the following topics:
• Modern services and productivity. How can modern services contribute to the necessary increases in productivity in all sectors? What are the key strategies to encourage businesses to be more efficient and competitive? What is the role of management skills to improve productivity?
• Orange Economy. Defined as the set of economic activities generated from knowledge, creativity and innovation. This conference aims to increase the understanding of this new sector and analyze its potential for the growth and development of countries in the region. How does the orange economy contribute to the development of new services?
• Innovation and servification. Can services strengthen the competitiveness of countries with comparative advantages in natural resources? How do modern services facilitate or drive innovation in different sectors of the economy, with special emphasis on agriculture, mining and industry? What evidence is there in different sectors on this topic?
• Industry 4.0 and human capital, including automation and robotization of processes, new industries and their impacts on employment and wages. In what sectors has industry 4.0 been introduced? Examples of success and failure. How are disruptive technologies affecting employment in different service sectors? To what extent is labor training adapting to these changes? What is the role of the education system and the private sector? What skills are required for future employment? How can the education system address the polarization of jobs and the displacement of certain categories of work?
• Digitization of services and digital commerce (cross-border). What evidence exists about how the Internet and other digital platforms reduce the costs of buying and delivering cross-border services and goods? How do these new technologies promote the internationalization of services? What regulations facilitate and hinder internal and cross-border digital commerce? What are the links between services and goods in the context of digital commerce? What progress is made in the measurement of digital commerce (cross-border) and digital transformation?
• Regions and services. Opportunities to reduce territorial gaps involving modern services. Economic agglomerations of services. The role of smart cities. How does the regionalization of the production of modern services contributes to: identifying priority services to acquire greater competitiveness; promote greater use of international trade agreements; focus export promotion on entrepreneurship; contribute to business formalization; adoption of technology by SMEs and improvement of regulations
• Globalization. Recent developments in international trade and foreign direct investment in services, global value chains and outsourcing, and offshoring processes in a context of growing commercial tensions. How do the (mega) free trade agreements and integration schemes respond to these tensions? What reforms are proposed for the World Trade Organization to resolve trade tensions in goods, services, intellectual property, subsidies and public procurement, among others?
• Contributions of the services sector to the environmental, economic and social sustainability of production processes and international trade. What impact has the growing role of services in international trade on the environment? What role for design, marketing and other specialized services related to the circular economy?
• Rethink public policy. In the light of new developments in technology and the digital revolution, what are the best policy options for productive and export development for modern services? Are there examples of industrial policies based on public-private partnership for the provision and export of modern services in the region? How to promote modern services in the context of increasingly digital economies?
*HOW TO APPLY
Eligibility: graduate students and young scholars (5 years since earning a PhD degree).
Requirement: an extended abstract of no more than 3 pages indicating the objectives, methodology, main expected results and conclusions, as well as contributions to knowledge in the field. Abstracts will be accepted in Spanish and English.
Deadline for extended abstract: July 15th, 2019.
Deadline for full paper: September 15th, 2019.
Size of abstract: The extension must not exceed 12,000 words.
*Send the abstract to latam@youngscholarsinitiative.org and redlas.conferencia@gmail.com with the subject "YSI – REDLAS"
More info: www.redlas2019.net
Confirmed Speakers
Andrew Jones (London University)
Nanno Mulder (ECLAC)
Patrik Strom (Gotemburgo University)
Enrique Gilles (EAN University and UCNTAD)