Special Training Workshop "Urban Economics - Emerging Issues and Potential Research Directions" in the series of academic activities of ACBES 2023

18 Sep, 2023

On the morning of August 16, 2023, the Special Training Workshop in the Academic Series of the 5th Asia Conference on Business and Economic Studies (ACBES 2023), with the theme "Urban Economics - Emerging Issues and Potential Research Directions" was successfully held with the participation of more than 60 guests under Hybrid format.

Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies (JABES), on behalf of the Organizing Committee of ACBES 2023, introduced the Keynote speaker of the second session of the Special Training Workshop. Dr. Bryan S. Weber, a full-time lecturer at the City University of New York (US), is currently a member of the Editorial Board of JABES English version. Much of the research by Dr. Bryan S. Weber deals primarily with economic issues related to urban development, labor, economic issues of transportation, and experiments related to human behavior and human decision-making in the context of megacities.

Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan introduced the key speaker of the Special Training Workshop

At this Special Training Workshop, Dr. Bryan focused on the following research directions: The development of econometric models and research topics related to urban areas listed as Traffic Economics, Economics of Crime, and the Sharing Economy. While presenting the development of econometric models related to these topics, the speaker repeatedly emphasized the importance and aspects of data when using both traditional and modern econometric models. In addition, the concept of "Machine Learning" is mentioned in data processing to increase accuracy in the process of analyzing urban-related topics and inherently these problems are quite complex when it exists as a distributed cluster.

Prof. Bryan S. Weber presenting the topic "Urban Economics - Emerging Issues and Potential Research Directions"

The argument is that the traffic problem is one of the key factors for the urban development process when a large amount of time and money of each individual is spent on commuting every day, leading to various types of costs listed as fuel fees, repair and maintenance fees, parking and stopping fees. Urban economics in general and transport economics in particular will be both opportunities and challenges for academicians in the world in general and especially Vietnamese economists in particular when the problem of transportation in Vietnam is a bottleneck in the development process.

Dr. Bryan S. Weber used a specific study on the use of city buses to reduce crime rates in certain areas of the US as an example for the topic of crime economics. This study examines the introduction of fixed bus routes to neighborhoods and concludes this reduces crime rates. There are many predictions that the crime rate will increase along bus routes because there are more victims; however, the eyes-and-ears effect may prevail for public transport. The results showed that the crime rate decreased by almost 25% along the experimental routes compared to the control group. This is a concrete demonstration that the results of scientific research can be applied to real society in order to make reasonable policies, helping to improve people's awareness of the process of urban development.

Dr. Bryan S. Weber sharing his research experience

Concluding his presentation, Dr. Bryan received a lot of lively discussion questions from a large number of domestic and international scientists and researchers participating in the Workshop, questions about different aspects in the field of urban economics and interesting content, as well as remarkable research suggestions, these may be research directions of great interest to experts and academia in the coming time to solve the problems that megacities in developing countries like Vietnam face.

Scientists exchanging lively discussions under the presentation of Dr. Bryan S. Weber

At the end of the program, Mr. Nguyen Trong Hoai - JABES Editor-in-Chief, on behalf of the Organizing Committee of ACBES 2023, thanked Dr. Bryan S. Weber for bringing many new research ideas to young researchers in Asia in general and in Vietnam in particular. Finally, Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai, on behalf of the Organizing Committee presented souvenirs to the keynote speaker, Dr. Bryan S. Weber, and closed two workshop sessions in the first academic series of the ACBES Conference 2023.