30th Student Economic Review Celebrated with Reunion of Alumni

Posted on: 07 April 2016

The 30th volume of the Student Economic Review was celebrated with a landmark event when committee members from each of the past twenty-nine years were invited to attend its launch in the Dining Hall on March 24th, 2016. Over 200 guests were present, including current students who had essays accepted in the Review, family, returning alumni and current and retired staff.

Founded in 1987, the Student Economic Review (SER) is one of the oldest undergraduate journals in the world. With a reputation for academic excellence, the Review provides a platform to showcase the exceptional work being undertaken by Trinity’s Economics students who seek to explore and challenge conventional economic wisdom and to apply economic theories in new ways and to new areas.

Every year the SER has featured many outstanding essays and today former committee members and contributors are leading figures and innovators in the fields of business, finance, research and academia globally. At the event, ten past committee members spoke about their memories of College days and their outstanding career success since then. Speakers included the CEO of Wexford Festival Opera, a senior member of the World Bank, the Director of the Small Firms Association, the Business Editor of the Sunday Business Post, international academics and bankers among others.

The 2016 Review was then formally launched, with speeches by this year’s Editor, Gillian O’Connell, a JS student in Economics and Psychology, and General Manager, Kate Hayes, a JS student in Economics and Mathematics.  The first editor of the SER, and former Chief Executive of the Office of Fair Trading in the UK, John Fingleton, responded.

Commenting on the event, Professor of Economics and President of the Student Economic Review since its inception, John O’Hagan said “It has been a real privilege to have the opportunity to work with the many bright and talented students who have been part of the SER over the years. The response to the event was remarkable with graduates travelling from Ireland, Britain, the USA and Singapore to connect with old friends and to reflect on the SER experiences that have stayed with them long after they left Trinity.”

The Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast noted that “The SER is a model Trinity initiative; and like all great Trinity initiatives, it benefits not only the college, but the whole global community”.

Following the event 1991 SER Committee Member Eddie Dowse reflected: “How do you describe what on paper was an evening where over 200 esteemed, aspiring and once-upon-a-time economists gathered together to sit through three hours of speeches and thank-you messages for the 30th launch of a journal? But what transpired was something very different, very unexpected and something very, very special.  It was a carefully and meticulously primed barrage of triggers that throughout the evening fired off, and brought to vivid life, so many forgotten but precious memories of toil, late nights, exuberance, friendships, triumphs and so much more. It condensed and weaved this 30 years of collective experiences into a shared, yet very personal tapestry of experiences linked by two common and consistent threads – Professor John O’Hagan and the SER. And the evening did this in such an incredibly emotional and entertaining way”.

About the Student Economic Review

Each year the SER Committee is chosen from the third-year economics undergraduates by academics in the Department of Economics. These students are responsible for coordinating all matters relating to the Review from sponsorship and managing financial matters through to reviewing, selecting and editing the essays and producing and launching the publication.  

While the core of the SER for many years was the Review itself its scope has widened to include debates, first against UCD, then Oxford and Cambridge and more recently Harvard and Yale.  These debates are now almost as much a part of the SER as the journal itself. Played to packed audiences in the GMB, the debates are held jointly with either The Hist or The Phil.

In more recent years the SER Committee has also organised workshops. In 2016 this included two lectures by Nobel Prize winners in economics with the 2015 Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton speaking at an event co-hosted with The Hist and the 2002 Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith speaking at an event co-hosted with the Trinity Economic Forum. 

The work of the Student Economic Review would not be possible without the generous support of its sponsors, all Trinity Economics graduates, including chief sponsor for over ten years, Harry Hartford; Conor Killeen and Kyran McStay of Key Capital, sponsors of the Harvard/Yale debates; sponsor of the Oxbridge debates, Vinay Nair; and general SER sponsors Alan Gray, Aoife Cunningham and Orson Francescone.