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To celebrate the fifth year of the Sun Hung Kai Properties Nobel Laureates Distinguished Lectures, Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) announced earlier that three Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences have been invited to deliver three lectures to address the current state of the global economy. The first lecture was delivered by Professor Kenneth J. Arrow, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, on “Economic Analysis and Social Obligation” with overwhelming response on 3 November. Riding on its success, the second lecture by Professor William F. Sharpe, 1990 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, will be held next Saturday (29 November). Professor Sharpe will share his view on “Financing Retirement: Collective and Individual Approaches” with CUHK staff, students, alumni and members of the political and commercial sectors.

Professor Sharpe’s topic will be of great importance as, in the short term, many retirement plans have been thrown into disarray by the recent financial turmoil, and, in the long term, increasing life expectancy and changing demographics demand a fundamental re-examination of how a society transfers goods and services from active workers to children and the elderly. Individuals have to finance a substantial portion of their own retirement, relying on financial instruments and institutions. Professor Sharpe will speak about the need for educated and responsible citizens as well as trusted and transparent financial instruments and institutions – needs not fully met in most economies. This lecture will address these issues and suggest ways in which societies might better allocate resources and risks among generations.

Professor Sharpe is the STANCO 25 Professor of Finance, Emeritus at Stanford University and past President of the American Finance Association. In 1990 he received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Harry M. Markowitz and Merton H. Miller “for their pioneering work in the theory of financial economics”. Professor Sharpe was one of the originators of the Capital Asset Pricing Model and is best known in the finance community for the Sharpe Ratio, a measure that is almost universally quoted for different investment vehicles to express the balance between return and risk. He is no stranger to Hong Kong; from 1999 to 2002, he was a Special Advisor to the Hong Kong Council of Advisors on Innovation and Technology.

The lecture will be broadcast live to local universities, and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks with the aim of extending its benefits and raising public awareness of the leading scholarship in the six Nobel prize categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences. It will also be available on the Hong Kong Education City web site for online viewing by secondary school students and teachers. There will also be a live feed to Peking, Fudan, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Tsinghua, Zhejiang, Nanjing and Sun Yat-sen Universities on the mainland.

Free tickets will be available to give Hong Kong people a chance to benefit from the distinguished scholar’s insight. Details are as follows:

Details of the Lecture:
Date: 29 November 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 11:30 am
Place: Grand Ballroom, 1st floor, Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, 1 Harbour Road, Hong Kong
Language: English

Ticket collection:

Starting 21 November 2008 (Friday)

The Sun Hung Kai Properties Nobel Laureates Distinguished Lectures were inaugurated in 2004 in conjunction with The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The series brings in Nobel Laureates to speak to a broad cross-section of the community, to promote the discovery and the dissemination of knowledge, professional and entrepreneurial expertise and contributions to humanity. Including this, the fifteenth installment of the series, 22 Nobel Laureates or renowned scholars will have lectured in Hong Kong.