Michael Canares, managing consultant of Step Up Consulting Services is one of the more than 50 academics invited to the Poverty and Behavioral Economics conference hosted by the United Nations University- World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) based in Helsinki, Finland. The conference was held at the Marina Congress Center last 1-2 September 2011.

The conference intended “to take stock of current knowledge, to draw out the major policy implications, and to chart promising areas for research” on poverty withe the perspective of development economics. Presenters were famous economics as Ravi Kanbur, Dean Karlan, and Sendhil Mullainathan and topics ranged from the economics of happiness, prospect theory, uncertainties and valuations to corruption and violence. UNU-WIDER

Mr. Canares is one of the very few young academics from the global south invited to the gathering. He has worked recently with UNU WIDER on two projects in the past – on entrepreneurship and conflict, and urbanisation and development. UNU-WIDER is ranked one of the top ten think tanks in the world.