Commemoration of the 10th Year of Prof. Dr. Murat Sertel’s Passing

Speakers: 

Opening Speech: Prof. Dr. Remzi Sanver (İstanbul Bilgi University)
Memorial Address: Prof. Dr. Semih Koray (Bilkent University) 
Memorial Address: Prof. Dr. Nicholas Baigent (London School of Economics and Graz University)

Date: January 25, 2013 Friday
Time: 14:00-16:00 
Place: santralistanbul Campus, E3-101

The Murat Sertel Center for Advanced Economic Studies, in collaboration with the Economics Department of  İstanbul Bilgi University, is organizing a memorial conference commemorating the 10th year anniversary of  Prof. Dr. Murat Sertel’s  passing away, involving his family, friends, students and the scientific community. 

Prof. Dr. Murat R. Sertel is a major architect of Economic Theory in Turkey. Being among the most prominent researchers in the fields of Game Theory, Social Choice Theory and Economic Design, Sertel helped Turkey obtain a distinguished place in Economic Theory and Social Sciences, through his publications and researchers he nurtured. His international distinction in the area of economic theory encouraged other Turkish economists and inspired a new generation to follow on his footsteps. 

The focal point of Sertel's work was on economic design, an area of study centered on the design of institutions where individual goals and social objectives overlap. This field of research examines and criticizes current economic, political and social institutions such as constitutions, property rights, tax laws, allocation rules, voting rules and auction mechanisms. Murat Sertel managed to present past work in this field from a coherent perspective designated by the name of economic design. This concept is present in all of Sertel's work and initiatives: the Center for Economic Design, the Review of Economic Design, the Foundation for Economic Design and the Society for Economic Design can be seen as Sertel's heritage to the scientific community. 

The opening speech of the event will be given by the rector of İstanbul Bilgi University, Prof. Dr. Remzi Sanver, who is also a former student of Murat Sertel. Prof. Dr. Nicholas Baigent’s memorial address is going to follow that of Prof. Dr. Semih Koray’s, an esteemed colleague and dear friend of Sertel

The Murat Sertel Center for Advanced Economic Studies was established in 2009, in honor of the late Professor Murat R. Sertel. The Center aims to constitute a gathering point for the scientists who are part of the scientific tradition inspired by Murat Sertel. Its mission is to represent, through the coordination of the individual scientific activities of our members, a common identity that reflects the internationally recognized mathematical social sciences tradition in Turkey. 

Since its creation, the Murat Sertel Center for Advanced Economic Studies has organized several workshops and conferences, including the 4th World Congress of the Game Theory Society, which is an event organized once in every four years, hosted by İstanbul Bilgi University in July 2012. Numerous researchers in the fields of economics and mathematics have attended the congress, including Nobel Laureates John Nash, Eric Maskin, Reinhard Selten, and Roger Myerson.

Prof. Dr. Murat Sertel
Murat Sertel was born on July 12, 1942 in Ankara. He received his bachelor’s degree from Robert College, Istanbul, in 1963, his master’s degree from Oxford University Nuffield College in 1966 and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971. After having worked at MIT and the International Institute of Management, Berlin, he came back to Turkey in 1976. He was a professor of economics at Boğaziçi University from 1979 to 2003, during which period he also visited several universities and research institutes in different countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and the USA.

Murat Sertel was among the founding members of TÜBA, an institution in which he later on was elected as a council member. He founded and become the director Center for Economic Design (CED) in 1994. Having served as a referee and editor for various scientific journals such as Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, European Economic Review and European Journal of Political Economy, Sertel has also been the founder and editor-in-chief of Review of Economic Design.

Murat Sertel has received the Sedat Simavi Award in Social Sciences in 1984, the International Development Research Center Research Award in 1987, the Mustafa Parlar Science Award in 1992, the BÜVAK Award for Academic Excellence in 1998, and he has over 80 articles published in prominent scientific journals, together with eight books published by scientific publishing houses.

Sertel passed away on January 25, 2003, during a scientific conference in Aix-en-Provence.