This will be the fifth edition of CURE, an annual conference that brings together a group of about 30 urban and regional economists from across the world. CURE alternates across the Atlantic, and has been held in different locations in Europe on odd years and in Princeton, USA on even years. Previous European editions have taken place in Milan and Madrid. When held in Europe, CURE is organised through the International Trade and Regional Economics Programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

This year's CURE will be hosted by the London School of Economics.The programme will run for 2 days, from the morning of Friday 4 October until the afternoon of Saturday 5 October, with participants arriving on Thursday 3 October.

Funding
Funding will be provided for all participants' accommodation for up to three nights, but only limited travel funding will be available. We cannot at this stage commit to financing the travel expenses of all participants. If you have alternative research travel funding at your disposal, we encourage you to indicate your willingness to use this to attend the event on your reply form. This will help fund travel for participants who do not have other sources of funding, young researchers in particular. Where travel costs are covered, this will be in accordance with the CEPR Travel Guidelines http://www.cepr.org/meets/WKCN/misc/trp.pdf.

Applications
Kindly note that it will not be possible to accept all applications to attend the event. At this stage, we would thus like you to simply confirm your interest in attending the meeting and indicate whether or not you wish to present a paper. To respond, please go to http://www.cepr.org/YourProfile/Meetings/ and indicate whether or not you wish to present a paper or would be willing to act as a discussant. The deadline for replies is 18:00 GMT on Thursday 2 May 2013. If you would like to present a paper, please include a copy of the paper or, at the very least, an extended abstract. We plan on confirming the list of participants and paper presentations by the end of May 2013.

You may also like to read our Guidelines on how to register online for CEPR Meetings at http://www.cepr.org/meets/emo/Guidelines.htm If you have any difficulties registering for this meeting, please contact Amanda Vincent-Rous at avincentrous@cepr.org or +44 20 7183 8808.

The Euro-Latin Network on Integration and Trade (ELSNIT) is now accepting submissions of papers examining the patterns and determinants of the internationalization of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) along the economic, institutional, and social dimensions. In particular, submissions of papers should address questions such as – but not limited to – the following:

-The Importance of SMEs in Trade Flows and FDI: How important are the SMEs in countries’ exports, imports, and foreign direct investment, in terms of both the share in the number of firms involved in these activities and of their aggregate values? To what extent these figures change when intermediated trade (e.g., through wholesalers) or indirect trade (e.g., sales of inputs to large companies that end up exporting the final product) is explicitly taken into account? What is the contribution of the SMEs to export growth and diversification over time? What is their consequent impact on overall employment growth? Are their specific sectoral patterns (e.g., manufacturing vs. services) or systematic differences across hosting countries?

-The Internationalization of SMEs and Its Driving Factors: What are the factors driving the internationalization of the SMEs? What kinds of SMEs are more likely to engage in cross-border economic activities in general and exporting in particular? What are their distinguishing factors (e.g., relative size, productivity, age, etc.)? For those SMEs already selling abroad, how does the distribution of export intensities look like? Are SMEs trading services different? How important are born-global SMEs? What are the differences between these SMEs and other SMEs? Does innovation matter for internationalization? What roles does collaboration with research centers play? Can product and process certification make a difference? What are the modes of entry into foreign markets and what is their relative importance for SMEs? To what extent does participation in global value chains account for the internationalization of the SMEs? Do SMEs need to growth or is their size a key to success? What are the main barriers faced by the SMEs in growing and internationalizing? To what extent have ICTs helped reduce information obstacles for SMEs? What is the contribution of social and business networks? What kind of influence do informality and access to financing and technology have? How does internationalization affect SMEs’ performance (e.g., productivity)? Does this effect depend on the characteristics of the SMEs or the specific international activity they carry out?

-The Policy Perspective: Do general public policies such as those concerning physical infrastructure, tariffs, customs procedures, and environmental regulations have heterogeneous effects across firm size categories? Are the impact of public interventions such as trade, innovation, and linkages promotion different across these firms’ groups? How do the effects of public schemes supporting financial needs associated with the internationalization distribute across size segments? What is the economic rationale of public programs targeting SMEs in general and their internationalization in particular? How aware are SMEs of these programs? What is the actual rate of use? Are specific actions more cost-effective than others? Does the specific combination of policy instruments matter for their effectiveness? Do online tools help? Is it justified to have programs with an explicit regional dimension? Are there superior institutional arrangements to manage these instruments? What role do/can international organizations in general and regional development banks in particular play in supporting the internationalization of the SMEs? What are the initiatives of the private sector (e.g., by chambers of commerce and private transnational networks in general) in this area? What are their effects? How well coordinated are these actions with the respective public actions?

Both theoretical and empirical contributions will be considered, but in all cases priority will be given to papers identifying and shedding light on relevant policy questions such as those outlined above, including case studies of policies followed by national or international organizations, in particular. Furthermore, submission of papers that, in doing this, explicitly contrast successful and failed cases, comparing countries within a certain a geographical area, is strongly encouraged. Important lessons are expected to be drawn from these contributions for Latin American and Caribbean countries. The selected papers will be presented along invited contributions at the XI Annual ELSNIT Conference that will be hosted by the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) in Barcelona, Spain, on October 17-18, 2013.

A recognized expert in the field will comment upon each paper. All the papers and discussions will be circulated as working documents of the network. The authors are free to submit the papers to academic journals, stating that they were presented at the XI Annual ELSNIT Conference.

Procedure for Submission of Papers
All researchers who are associated with a European or Latin American/Caribbean based academic or research institution are eligible to submit papers. While detailed abstracts will be accepted, there is a strong preference for nearly completed papers. Submission should be accompanied by a statement declaring the institutional affiliation of the authors. The papers should be written in English. To register for the conference and submit a paper, please fill out this FORM and follow the instructions therein.

The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2013. The final selection of papers will be made by June 10, 2013 by the network coordinators – László Bruszt (EUI), Marise Cremona (EUI), Matthieu Crozet (CEPII and University of Paris 1), Simon Evenett (University St. Gallen and CEPR), Holger Görg (University of Kiel, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and CEPR), Jacint Jordana (IBEI and UPF), Gianmarco Ottaviano (London School of Economics, Paolo Baffi Centre and KITeS - Bocconi University, and CEPR), and Christian Volpe Martincus (IDB/INT) – together with Professor Jacques Ziller (UP-FPS, Pavia) who is an external advisor to the network. The final versions of the papers must be delivered by September 20, 2013.

The selected authors’ and invited discussants’ travel expenditures (economy class) and per diems to participate at the conference will be reimbursed by the IDB. Detailed guidelines explaining the logistics of the conference will be provided at a later stage. Please circulate this call for papers among your colleagues and other potentially interested parties.

Background Information
The Euro-Latin Study Network on Integration and Trade (ELSNIT) is an initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank to create in Europe a forum on integration and trade issues relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean. The main objectives of the Network are to generate research, studies and debate on these issues, draw on a rich European experience and perspectives and increase interaction between European and Latin American researchers. The annual conference organized in the framework of the Network focuses on a particular issue each year.

The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers in different fields of finance and economics working on financial stability and regulation-related issues. We are inviting high quality submissions of a theoretical and empirical nature.

Topics include the following, but are not limited to:

Bank Capital and Liquidity
- How should we measure bank capital? How large should capital buffers be and when does prompt corrective action need to be triggered?
- What are the determinants of bank capital? What are the social and private costs and benefits of leverage, and how can they be measured?
- Deleveraging and bank performance following heightened bank capital requirements. How (fast) do banks adjust their balance sheet? Is deviating from optimal or regulatory targets costly and value-destroying?
- Do liquidity requirements lead to better risk management and less systemic risk?

Regulation, Monetary Policy and Economic Performance
- How should bank capital requirements vary with the business cycle?
- What does bank regulation imply for the optimal monetary policy design over the business cycle?
- What does more financial regulation mean for firm entry, firm-level investment and economic growth?

Bank Size and Complexity
- Is it necessary to limit size and / or complexity? Does it help to prevent the moral hazard of "too big to fail"?
- Does putting limits on bank size and activities yield more credible resolution plans and better recovery prospects?
- How does fair value accounting and disclosure affect the fragility of financial institutions? To what extent should financial reporting and bank capital regulation be linked or decoupled?

Governance, Competition, and Internationalisation
- How does regulation at home affect banks’ finance abroad? Is there scope for regulatory arbitrage?
- On the cooperation between local regulators and supervisors and cross-border regulators and supervisors: Which banks should be supervised by the ECB and which ones by local supervisors? How to respond to a unilateral delayed implementation of regulation that was decided in a global agreement?
- Regulating the competitive structure of the banking sector: How is banking competition related to financial stability? What are the conditions that induce too much (or too little) competition to deteriorate stability? The optimality of bank competition policy.
- Is there a link between corporate governance of banks and financial stability? What is the role that the regulatory framework can play in achieving better management and organisational structural in the banking sector?

Paper submissions and deadline
The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2013. Papers should be submitted electronically to ebc@tilburguniversity.edu referring to FS conference 2013 along with your affiliation and e-mail address.

In the e-mail please indicate whether or not you are willing to act as a discussant.
Authors of accepted papers will be contacted by August 15, 2013. Economy class travel and accommodation for invited participants will be covered.

Further information
The conference will be held at Tilburg University. Tentatively, the programme will start on Monday at 10:00 and will end on Tuesday at 15:30. The programme will include 8-10 papers with their discussions, leaving ample time for comments from the audience. Presenters and discussants are kindly invited to attend for the whole duration of the conference.

More details about the conference and the venue can be found at: http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/ebc/events/2013/financial-stability/

Organisers
- Olivier De Jonghe (EBC, Tilburg University)
- Burak Uras (EBC, Tilburg University)
- Wolf Wagner (EBC, Tilburg University)