Dear SAET members,

In this difficult period, in association with the Executive Committee of SAET, I would like to convey our hopes that every one of you, and those who are close to you, are safe and cautious. We are also sharing our deepest thoughts with those who have had to face the consequences of an infection by this terrible disease.

It is only a little more than three months since the start of a new decade, marking for SAET its 30th anniversary and the several events that we were expecting to live together this year. At the same moment a new virus in the coronavirus family was confirmed to have appeared in the town of Wuhan in China. In less than three months, the coronavirus pandemic has crossed the world from China, Iran, Europe and the States and is still dramatically progressing, in particular towards emerging and developing economies. The resulting economic crisis has hit the whole world at an unprecedented speed and violence.This sanitary and economic crisis has deep consequences on each of us, on our family, and on our fellows in various activities. We, at SAET, do care about these consequences and hope we can act to limit their impact. Some consequences might have a durable (and sometimes positive)impact on our way of life.

One expected and immediate consequence is the postponement of the events that were advertised on the SAET website until recently. As for the Conference of the Society, the 20th annual SAET Conference,that was to be held in June 14-17, 2020 in Seoul (South Korea), we promised to make a final decision in April. It appears now that the best decision is to postpone the Conference to June 13-16, 2021 in Seoul.The European Workshop in Economic Theory that was to take place in Akko (Israel) on June 7-9, with the Debreu Lecture delivered by Robert Aumann on June 8th, his 90th birthday, and the Mediterranean Workshop in Economic Theory to be held in Porto (Portugal) on June 1-2 with the objective of developing scientific exchanges between researchers in Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean region, have now been postponed without any new proposed dates yet. These are sad decisions for the local organizers who have already invested so much efforts in planning the event, and for all the potential participants who have planned to come and have submitted papers and/or organized sessions. Thank you to all for your dedication. Of course, we will update the information about these events as soon as we can. Also, the election of new fellows will proceed as usual in the coming weeks.

Since we are deprived of these meetings that represent privileged moments for exchanging information about ongoing research, SAET wants to encourage communication among its members, friends and colleagues in other ways and to promote international cooperation.Do not hesitate to share with us any news or initiatives. In that respect, I have received an email from David Levine who is part of a group of economists who want to share data and ideas on how to manage the decreasing stage of the pandemic in order to restart the economy safely. Some information about this international initiative can be found at www.covid-19-research-conduit.org. Innovative thinking, using the tools of economic theory and its related fields, is being used to study the economic impact of various policies to control the pandemic and elaborate an exit strategy. It is also essential in order to design or analyze the possible policy responses of governments and international institutions to the economic crisis. The Executive Committee has approved to give the backing of SAET to this important initiative hoping that it will help its expansion and allow it to get through to policy makers.

Take good care of yourself and your family.

Claude d’Aspremont, President of SAET