15 2

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15-2

Three Interviews > 8, 12, 30

Pool tournament > 10 German Tank Problem > 16 QFP > 22

Active members: Paintball > 28 Find your Match > 36

Two Puzzles > 24

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A flying start at the bank that thinks and acts like entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.careeratnibc.com.

preface

01

from the president Dear reader, By the time you are actually holding this Estimator you will have gotten used to writing ‘2013’ as opposed to ‘2012’ on your assignments, but at the time of writing we are still fresh into the new year. I hope that everyone had a good and not too hectic Christmas holidays, that the Christmas family dinners weren’t too awkward, that nobody lost fingers because of a rebel firecracker and that nobody broke their legs doing some fancy trick on a snowboard.

>>47

We can look back on the previous year with pride, as 2012 has been a good year to the ED. The events have been going well, the social drinks have gathered more people than ever and our international students seemed to have taken a good liking to Rotterdam. We can only hope that we can continue this positive trend into the new year and many years beyond that.

And from the looks of it, it sure seems that way. 2013 starts off with a bang, the first couple of months filled to the brim with both career and social events. Career wise you will have a blast if you intend to visit what we have in store for you; in-house days at various prestigious companies from various fields of econometrics, or the participating companies at our corporate speed-dating event Find Your Match, excellent for finding a future internship. And we won’t stop there: of course the upcoming LED (Landelijke Econometristen Dag/National Econometrician’s Day), with 30 companies, is the ideal event to get to know plenty of firms that spark your interest. And with -an added party afterwards this LED, as every LED before, it is bound to be a great success.

If you are more of a social type than there won’t be any reason to sit around at home either. Whether you like just having a beer or soda at our social drink, or want something a little more challenging like ice-skating, the ED has something that suits you. For the party-goers, we also have the upcoming prom: everyone all dressed up, and unlimited drinking all night for a small fee. This is organized in cooperation with three other associations so it’s bound to be an exciting night. And then I haven’t even mentioned the upcoming city-trip yet.

So, although the holidays have been good, it is time to move on! And as you can derive from this preface, this is not such a bad thing all things considered. As always, I hope everyone enjoys themselves on the various activities offered, and feel free to drop by at the ED office H10-05 for a good cup of coffee!

Christiaan Lensvelt President of the ED 2012-2013 x

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p e r iodi c a l m a g a z in e

02 Table of contents 01. From the president // 03. Editorial // 04. Agenda 06. Who is who? //08. Interview Flow Traders // 10. Pool tournament 11. Inhouse day CBS // 12. Interview Milliman // 14. Adventures of the Board 16. German Tank Problem // 20. Centerfold // 22. QFP 24. Puzzle // 25. Mathematical Skiing // 26. Chef // 27. Hup Holland 28. Paintball // 30. Interview NIBC // 32. Inhouse day ECT // 33. NY Drink 34. BETA // 36. Find Your Match // 36. Educational Board 38. Educational Committee // 40. List of Graduates

10 22 28 36

p

Pool Tournament

The yearly returnling pool tournament of the ED. There was an huge turnout. ×

p

QFP

The story of the Quantative Finance Project, the anual returning event in London ×

p

p

Paintball

Find your Match

The active members day was really active, we went to play paintball! x

It was time to make the best impression in less than 6 minutes: Find your Match! ×

Advertisements 00. NIBC // 05. Econometrie.com // 29. Flow Traders // 41. Milliman 42. Mercer

Colofon Final Editing > Emiel Verhaert Editorial Office > Sierk Wiegers, Max Schotsman, Jelle Huisman, Marijtje van Leeuwen and Ruud van Luijk Photo: Marijn Waltman Office address > Erasmus University, Room H11-02, Burg. Oudlaan 50, P.O box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, estimator@ectrie.nl Acquisition > Roman Gorlov, phone: 010 - 408 14 39 Circulation > 850 copies Printer> Nuance Print Design/DTP > Het Econometrisch Dispuut. Estimator is a periodical from the Econometrisch Dispuut

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editorial

03

New year, new Estimator

> Dear members of the ED, The year 2012 has passed very fast and the year 2013 has made a cool entrance into our lives. Nevertheless, we return in our daily rythms and 88% of you guys has failed or probably will fail their New Years resolutions. Whatever your new years resolutions are, whether it is to improve your grades or improve yourself, your physical wellbeing or your mental wellbeing, here is a tip for you: “Resolutions are more sustainable when shared, both in terms of with whom you share the benefits of your resolution, and with whom you share the path of maintaining your resolution.” - Frank Ra This way you increase the pressure and the heated emotions translate in thoughts which in turn translate in actions. And that is what you need when reaching a goal.

Furthermore, combining having fun and having to achieve productive tasks can be perfectly combined and this year there will not be a shortage of fun at the ED! More sports tournaments, drinks and trips will be your opportunity to relax and when you are relaxed. It is said that you can study better!

Improving professionally and increasing knowledge in possible career choices also stays possible at the ED with inhouse days and other recruitment activities which are organised by the recruitment committee, that will be introduced to you a couple of pages ahead. Also, the Icansultancy committee will be introduced and after last year’s success it is good to keep an eye open for these opportunities.

The puzzle of the last edition also deserves to be mentioned. Since we have received no solutions to the puzzle we have placed it again in this edition and raised the stakes; in addition to the brand new puzzle that you can also find further on in the Estimator. For advice and information about possible career paths you can follow, there are three(!) company interviews that will provide you with information and advice about your possible career paths.

All in all, 2013 promises to be a success- and funfilled year, full of opportunities ahead. This will be a year of celebration with the centennial celebrations of the Erasmus School of Economics. Plenty of challenges will also arise for many students and I would like to wish everybody good luck with conquering these challenges.

Emiel Verhaert x

>>

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04 Agenda

Agenda February 14th: Inhouse day Bain & Company February 14th: Interfaculty prom February 15th: Deadline application International Research Project March 4th:

Start of the book sale

March 7th: Post exam drink March 7th:

Inhouse day Optiver

March 28th: Citytrip Berlin

>>

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06 Who is who?

who is who? > This edition it is up to the Icansultancy and Recruitment commitee to introduce themselves. These commitees will organise all sorts of recruitment events for the members.

>> Dear fellow Econometricians, It is my pleasure to introduce myself as one of the members of the ICansultancy Committee of our beloved study association. Some of you probably know me from last year when I was member of the Dutch Freshmen Committee.

For those who don’t, my name is David Mihailovic and I am a second year Bachelor student. My job in the committee is to find the crème de la crème out of the well-known consultants and organize together with them a splendid event. This would not be such a great pleasure without the help and support of my Committee partners Dennis and Robin.

Furthermore I am member of student association Laurentius, I am currently working at the Erasmus also and if all goes well, I will have the honor to teach some of the freshmen at the end of this year. Hopefully you will all have a wonderful year with lots of drinks, company visits and other social events!

Dear distinguished crowd, I feel honored being offered the magnificent opportunity of writing a 150-word piece about myself and the majestic committee of which I am part of. As you probably know you don’t just choose econometrics, it is your destiny. Many lesser beings go about studying haplessly formulated concepts like philosophy, psychology or economics. No, you are different, you are destined for greatness.

These fundamentals allow you to undergo the transformation of student to a venerable econometrician.

Sadly, many companies have yet to recognize the many capabilities of the econometrician. This is why our committee is set to turn this around. I Cansultancy aims to create a long-standing fruitful relationship between top consultancy firms and econometrics students from Rotterdam. This will all boil down to (an) event(s) where you will be intensely and deeply immersed into the daily practice of the jack-of-all-trades Consultant.

Dennis

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who is who?

Hello my friends, welcome.

Bob Maks of the recruitment committee has been waiting for you. I absolutely love locking myself in my room and matlab furiously, java, AIMMS or Eviews I also use. In my spare time I like to simulate the stockexchange crashes on my custom made Atari.

Playing 10 player wow raids with my own 10 characters is another thing I do quite often. My main char is an undead rogue, assasination specced. Should you ever encounter legolasisbetterthanGimli you’re dead already!

What’s up Rotterdam? My name is Mats and I’m in the recruitment committee this year. I was born on Krypton but went to earth just last year. Apart from going after Lois Lane and trying to lock up Lex Luther, I spend most of my days in my fortress of solitude or flying around earth to slow down time. I really enjoy studying here especially since I’m a superior being , econometrics comes really easy to me. If you like to know more about my life there will be a movie this year called ‘The man of Steel’ Don’t turn to the evil side or I will find and destroy you!

Love, The last son of Krypton AKA The man of Steel AKA Kal El AKA Clark Kent (sst)

Hey guys, My name is Mariam. I’m 23 and Armenian. I’ve lived in Moscow for 12 years though. And now for 8 years in the Netherlands. A great country, I feel at home here. At the moment I live in Rotterdam together with my boyfriend.

Besides my study I also work at the biggest optician in Rotterdam.

This is just a part time job but it is great. I joined the Recruitment Committee because I like to organize interesting yet a bit formal events with different companies.

Especially the Case Choice days.

My fellow committee members are great, because they became friends. So if you ever considering of joining a committee, don’t hesitate!

07

Hi, My name is Daisy van Oostrom and I am 21 years old. I live in Lopikerkapel (a small village next to IJsselstein where the biggest Christmas tree of Europe is located). Currently, I am in the third year of my study and this year I also joined the recruitment committee. I chose to be an active member of the ED because I like to do as many things next to my study as I can. And being an active member of our study association is only one thing I do next to my study. Also I started my part time job at MIcompany, a fast-growing marketing intelligence company located in Amsterdam. Next to study, work and committees I really enjoy playing tennis and soccer, going out and spending time with friends.

P.S.: I think Mats = Superman :O

May the force be with you!

P.S. Resistance is futile!!!

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08 interview

interview Flow Traders At the time of recieving this edition of the Estimator there has been an inhouse day at Flow Traders, yet maybe not everyone was able to visit Flow Traders this day. Therefore we also have an interview with a trader, so everyone can read what they do and how they do it.

> Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Mark and I have been working at Flow Traders since April 1st, 2012. Before that, I studied at University College Utrecht.

Then I did a master Applied Mathematics in Cambridge. And finally I did the master Theoretical Physics in Utrecht.

Every three months a new group starts at Flow Traders, and I took the first opportunity I had to start working here.

How have you experienced your first few weeks at Flow Traders?

In the beginning you have to work hard to keep up with everything.

Especially when you are used to your student routine, you have to get used to start working early every morning. But when you enjoy the work you do, it is no problem. The first three months you attend training sessions, where all the basics and the way we trade are explained. You start with some small trades, gradually you start making bigger and more im-

portant trades on your desk.

Did you do anything besides your studies?

Yes, I have studied in the United States for half a year, have been active member of a study associ-

Could you describe Flow Traders?

We have a lot of products, which we give a value. These products are also traded on the market.

When a product is exchanged on the market at a value which differs from what you think it is

There are moments when you have to make a decision very quickly, which can have big consequences. ation, and I have organized a career week. Especially studying abroad is a good way to develop your personality.

How did you end up at Flow Traders?

My studies were very quantitative, and so is the main part of the job I do here. At physics you have to translate problems into formulas, which isn’t very different from what I do here.

worth, then you have a trade. We work in teams, and every team is responsible for a different group of products. I am part of a group with more structured products.

You can see this as follows: banks give out certificates, which represent a certain value. There are a lot of complex problems, but the question remains, what is the real value of this product? Then we make models in order to try to give these certificates a price.

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interview

09

should also be a team player, and have a feeling for trading.

Analytical skills are also very useful. Almost everything is calculated by the computers, but when something strange appears on your screen, you have to know how to respond.

>>

Is it possible to work at one of the other offices of Flow Traders for a while?

Yes it is, for example when you have set up a specific project, and you would also like to implement this in another market. We have three offices: one in Singapore, for the Asian market, another in New York, which handles the American market. In Amsterdam we do the European market. This way Flow Traders is trading around the clock but in different time zones.

ministrative things and check out what is happening in the market..

At half past three Dutch time, the American market opens. For two hours both the American and Dutch market are active, which also is a busy time. At half past five the Dutch market closes and we do the end of the day administration. Then you take a look at all the trades you have done and check that everything has been done correctly. Then between six and half past six the working day usually ends for me.

What does your day look like?

Usually, I start at eight o’clock.

Between eight and nine I do the administration, and check if the bookings from the night before were processed correctly. Then I prepare everything for the workday. The opening of the day is at nine o’clock, which is a busy part of the day. During the day we also exchange thoughts in our team.

Between ten and eleven the pace slows down a bit. We do some ad-

Which part of the day do you enjoy the most?

The opening of the market is exciting; I like it the most when something happens.

Are there other functions in Flow Traders you could apply for after you have been working here for a while?

As a trader you can develop yourself. In the beginning you handle small and less important products. The longer you work here, the more responsibilities you get, such as for instance more products and larger value and developing new product groups. It is also possible to become a team manager, for which you first need some experience with trading.

Do you have any advice for people who would like to work for Flow Traders?

They should come to see Flow Traders themselves. We have inhouse days where they can get a good impression of what we do at Flow Traders.

Jelle Huisman & Ruud van Luijk x

What qualities should a trader have?

First of all you have to be able to handle some stress. There are moments when you have to make a decision very quickly, which can have big consequences. You

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10 Pool tournament

Pool Tournament

On November 8th it was time for the first tournament of the year.

As each year, every tournament is organized by the first years committee (EC) and those tournaments are the perfect opportunity to meet new members of the ED or catch up with old ones.

That is probably the main reason that there were so many people (72!) on the ED’s annually pool tournament.

>>

> At half past seven, most people had already arrived at the location, Thurston. When about a quarter to eight literally everybody had arrived and the first drinks were ordered, it was time to actually begin the tournament. But of course, it had to be a fair tournament, so the president of the EC welcomed everybody and explained the rules one more time.

After that, every team got to hear in which of the eight poules they were and now the first games could be played.

With not so much alcohol in the blood yet, you could easily tell which were the better teams and who were pooling for the first time in their lives. But as more beers were ordered, it became harder and harder to tell. There

Some teams were better in resisting beers or could deal with it better as they continued to play well.

were relative good teams who were far ahead against their opponent but wasted their win anyway. They realized however that this tournament was mainly for fun and they had some more beers. Other teams were better in resisting beers or could deal with it better as they continued to play well. They won in their poule and were ready to play the quarter finals!

And that was the moment when things really got exciting. As there were only eight teams in this round, the players who were allowed to play now had many spectators. Of course, every quarter final had one winning team and those four teams just needed to defeat one more opponent to get into the final! This probably ex-

plains why the players suddenly became a lot more fanatic, they wanted to win the (promised to be good) price. At last, the two last teams were ready to play the final round! After a nerve-racking game two internationals, Bob Muijs and Ricardo de Boer won this years tournament. They got a great price, namely a mini pool table and a cinema voucher each.

Hereafter, there still was one more game to be played. The players from the winning team needed to play against each other, since there could only be one name on the cup. After this tournament Bob Muijs could proudly call himself winner of the ED pooltournament 2012-2013!

Marijtje van Leeuwen x

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CBS

Inhouse day CBS > It was time for a new Inhouse day. This time we went to the place where statisics are practised the most: the Centraal Bureau van de Statistiek (Central Bureau of Statistics). The day started with a presentation about the statistics of the Netherlands.

Immediately there were some very critic questions from the students. After these interesting statistics of the Netherlands the Press Officer of the CBS told about the work of the CBS in general and where the opportunities are for Econometric students to work at CBS. Then it was time for the first case, a very interesting one especially for the marketing students. It was about the non-response with questionnaires. We had to esti-

mate the response on other questionnaires for every non-responding client and draw conclusions out of the results. This was a good example to see what you can do with statistics. When it was time

 11

>>

nents explain this conjecture. So it was more macro-economic than statistical this time. The CBS also made clear that they do not predict the economic situation, they merely explain the latest

CBS explains the latest data. to end the case the lunch was ready. As it should be at the government: a typical Dutch lunch, bread with milk.

data. Predictions are done by the Centraal Plan Bureau. At around five o’clock it was time to return home.

After the lunch it was time for the second case. This was somewhat more difficult and since there was shortage of time the case was done as a group. The case was about the conjecture of the Netherlands and what compo-

Ruud van Luijk x

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12 interview

interview milliman In this edition for the interview we went to Milliman. Milliman is a global company that consults in actuarial services and other financial consultancy services. Once we arrived at the Milliman office, near station Amsterdam Bijlmer-Arena, we met Keith Wu, risk consultant, and Sander Bierman, investment consultant. It promised to be a very interesting interview.

Can you tell us more about Milliman?

Milliman originates from America and was founded in the 1947. We do consulting for three sectors, the health sector, the employees benefit sector and the insurance sector.

In the health sector Milliman is a market leader in America. Because the health market is not so big in the Netherlands, the Dutch office of Milliman does a lot with actuarial, risk and investment consulting.

Globally about 2,600 people work at Milliman, in the office in Holland we serve the Benelux and about 40 people work here.

Milliman is a franchise-company, which means that the director also is an owner, however, partners can also get a stake in the company. The worldwide revenue of Milliman exceeds one billion US dollars.

Can you introduce yourself and tell a little bit about your background?

Keith: At the end of 2009 I graduated at Erasmus University in Quantitative Finance, after I graduated, I worked as a junior supervisor at DNB, after that I wanted to develop myself more in the areas of consultancy and commercial skills and I found a good match in Milliman.

Sander: After studying technical engineering and business administration in Groningen I started working at ING, after working for

5 years there, I wanted more diversity in my work and environment, involving more customer contact. So then I worked at Zanders for 6 years, halfway through those 6 years I wanted to do more investment consulting and now we are setting that up with a team here at Milliman.

What does a day look like at Milliman?

Sander: There are no standard days, you have different assignments, you can work in a project, then you work at the office of the client and are you ought to be there from 09.00 until late, and often it happens that when the client leaves, you are still working in the office. You can also have to cope with ad hoc assignments, here you use more consultancy skills and you have to work hard.

Some people start at 10 o’clock and work until 8 o’clock, others start at 8 and work until 4 o’clock, but it can also happen that the working hours are much longer.

So it is very diverse, varying from travelling to clients, performing analyses and solving consultancy problems. The office is here, but people come and go and your working day depends on whether you are doing a large project or small ad hoc assignments, or if there is pressure on the assignment.

Do you have tips for students, for their career later? What have you done or would you have done differently?

Keith: I think this is very personal. I think that when you are young, you often do not know what you want to do in the beginning and then is it good to choose a job where you can see and do many things. Then consultancy is a good way to go because you are being challenged in different areas and you see a lot because you are doing different projects.

That is why I think going into consultancy is a very good step to take for graduates.

Sander: My tip is, first do everything that you ever wanted to do.

Travel and do those sort of things before you work, because once you are working, it probably will not happen anymore. Often people say: ‘I will do that when I’m 30.’, but before you know it, there is a client that comes and has an excellent project for you, or when you get promoted or if you get kids, then you cannot anymore do what you wanted to do.

Also, like Keith, my advice is that if you do not know what you want to do, start in a consultancy environment or an area where you can see a lot. And what you learn at the university is nothing concrete, you only get scientific analytic skills and you cannot do anything at a company, so you have to learn everything from scratch when you are going to work, so if you see a

lot, and say consultancy happens to be no good for you, then at least you do know that you would like to work at a bank or in a corporate environment or something else.

What is the most interesting or challenging that you have done here at Milliman?

Sander: Setting up an investment consultancy section. It is a lot of fun because it is challenging.

There used to be a large section where 300 people used to work, but Milliman sold that about a year ago and now we are setting it up from scratch. We are very good in investment consultancy, but you have to be able to convince your potential clients. They ask what added value you have.

Recently we had to give a due diligence example, that is a kind of audit. Then you check at a client or potential client if everything is going well financially and operationally. So setting this up is the biggest challenge at the moment Keith: With consultancy it is being

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interview

>>

stimulated to be very entrepreneurial, so when you work here, nobody will come to you and say here is some work for you. You have to create work actively, maintain work, maintain clients, develop new products and so on, so you need to be very entrepreneurial and you should like that. If you want to do consultancy, being entrepreneurial is one of the most important characteristics you should have.

What did you want to do previously? Did you immediately want to go in the consultancy and finance areas?

Sander: The question you have to ask yourself now is: Suppose that you have unlimited money, what would you do?

When I answered this question for myself it was a bit like this: first I would like to travel the world for 5 years, maybe a family when I will be around 30. I like water sports, so maybe I should have worked in that area, as a yacht club master,

fidgeting with ships and fixing them up. On the other hand, finance has always interested me and this way I started in that area, and when I wanted more diversity

lot, if there are projects elsewhere and they are short of people, they can always get someone from our office that has the requested knowledge. When you work for Milliman in the Netherlands, most of your assignments, 95%, will be here and in Belgium. Sometimes we have a project for which we go to Germany to the offices in Berlin or Dusseldorf if they need someone from our office that has the knowledge for their projects. So most of the time you will work in the Netherlands, but 5% of your assignments is elsewhere, we are definitely international and if you would like to work at for example an American office then you also have that opportunity.

Are there a lot of econometricians that work here?

Sander: There are quite a lot of econometricians here, we also have a lot of actuaries and all sorts of people walk around. Most however have quantitative backgrounds. We are very good with numbers and making models.

Compared to other consultancy bureaus we are much more quantitative and that is our USP.

If you want to do consultancy, being entrepreneurial is one of the most important characteristics you should have . in the work, more diversity with clients you naturally get to Milliman and I like the entrepreneurial skills that are required. I get a kick when I land a contract, I get a kick when I give an excellent document and I get a kick when I meet a deadline.

Is the work international?

Keith: Milliman is an international company, we have 50 offices worldwide and we work a lot together with other offices. If they have a job at which they need our expertise then we communicate a

Do you see a lot from what you learned in your study?

Sander: I have studied technical engineering and business administration, one third was econometrics, one third technical subjects and one third business administration. The basics from econometrics I certainly use, but when I look at the rest it does not come back a lot, and especially the business administration part, where you so-called learn to run a company as CEO, of that I think: ‘What the hell can you do with that?!’ when you are 25, 26 and

13

you come from university then you cannot do anything. The same accounts for econometrics, but at least then you can calculate stuff.

Keith: You learned a lot at university, passed subjects, some pure for passing and you know a little bit of everything, but in the end you know nothing. What my experience is, is that most of the things I learned that time I do not use at all. With some subjects, you go very deep into the subjectmatter. You can forget all that, but you do need the basics and you need to use that to learn the new knowledge that is necessary. So what you learn at university is just basic, actually pure to test your IQ and if you made it, it means that you have analytical skills or something like that.

What are the working possibilities at Milliman?

Sander: We hire about 8 employees per year. This steady growth ensures that we always stay in control. The employee turnover is low and we would like to keep that. Internships are also possible, if you do an internship here you will get a good compensation for it, but of course we expect something for that. You should make a contribution through research or doing assignments, for example, if you do research, you can build a tool or perform an analysis. If we like you and the work goes well and you like it, we will continue with you.

For more information check www. nl.milliman.com/nl/about-milliman/work-at-milliman/ Emiel Verhaert & Max Schotsman x

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14 Adventures of the Board

Adventures of the Board Dear reader, This Estimator, the questionable honor of illustrating some of the many adventures we undertake has befallen me. The new-year celebrations are just behind us when I’m writing this, while I’m patiently waiting for the first snow to fall. Something that is getting more and more doubtful as the days pass by making this, with more and more certainty, a disappointing winter. Luckily we didn’t have much time to linger on these reflections, there was much to do and the scarce free hours were mostly used for sleeping.

> The first two periods seemed to have gone by in an blink of an eye. It seems only yesterday when we were cleaning up the mess of our predecessors. Since the last time this article was written we have seen and done a fair amount of new activities and events. I especially enjoyed our board integration day, a twice per year returning event intended for getting to know the board members of our sister organizations. The responsibility of this rotates between the different boards. This time we were invited to Amsterdam by our little sister “Kraket”. They had a very entertaining day in store for us and about 20 other board members of the rest of the organizations. We started with something I had never seen or done before and at first sounded a bit childish. But it was in fact, quite fun.

We were directed to a sports hall, completely filled with trampolines, on which we were going to

play some familiar high school games. Dodge ball and tag gained a whole new dynamic by this addition. Although I failed miserably at both of these games, it didn’t concern me as much as it would normally. Being able to jump higher than in everyday life gives you a certain amount of serenity I suppose. I’m pretty sure filling the world with trampolines and bouncy castles would solve about every world problem.

After two hours everyone was tired but very content, and after a well-deserved shower we proceeded to a pool centre. (Where I won convincingly, but I’m not one to boast. There was no award or price though, making it a rather disappointing experience. But, as always, beer heals all wounds.)

Excited, entertained and, being the case for some of us, a little intoxicated, we continued to the restaurant to end the day with a nutritious meal. The meal was served by a woman with a very

>>

Amsterdam accent, it was hilarious. But I’m easily entertained.

After this we went to a shooters bar, in order to get wasted.

Unfortunately I had to leave due to the fact that I was visiting my little brother that weekend, and had to get up inhumanely early to catch a flight to the UK. I wished everyone a great night, walked to the train, realized I forgot my bag, went back to the pool centre, found my bag, went back to train, and traveled home. I had a brilliant weekend in Huddersfield, but this is not the place for those stories.

A week earlier we had held our own pool tournament, organized by my favorite committee. I lost hopelessly. If I had known what great victories lay in my future I wouldn’t had let it get to me that much. After pulling myself together in the bathroom I realized this tournament was for a great part my responsibility and I returned to the tables. My teammate

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Adventures of the Board

15

×

was acting like nothing was wrong but I successfully fought the urge to strangle him and I decided to enjoy the rest of the games. I won’t go into any details, because you can read all about it in this estimator and I don’t want to spoil the fun. I will say though, that it was a very successful evening. I was especially happy with the turn-out and the amount of people who just came to support their friends, without even playing themselves. In the end, someone won and most people lost, the trophy was handed over to its new owner (although he left it here on our fridge) and speeches were given. Afterwards we went home or wandered the streets of Rotterdam, finding entertainment on other locations.

Now we forward around two weeks (fun things seem to cluster, I’m writing a paper about it) to our paintball event for active members. We like to organize events meant for active members

in order to thank them for their hard work, another reason to join a committee. With around 40 people we made way to, what I’m told, the only roofed paintball

very fun though.

experience

overall

I’m looking forward to what the rest of the year has in store for us.

“Beer is the cause and solution to all of life’s problems.” - Homer Simpson

centre in Rotterdam. We were welcomed in a cozy canteen, I believe they even had a giant fireplace, but I might have added that myself in my memory. We had to sign some papers which I guess exempted them from any charges in case someone shot himself, it’s a pretty brutal sport. We played a few different games, like capture the flag. Unfortunately my goggles kept getting fogged, making it an even more stressful experience; I was never sure who belonged to my team. I might have shot some teammates, but more likely I haven’t shot anyone. It was a

Some great events are still lined up, like the city-trip, Find Your Match and ICansultancy. I hope to see you at one of these events, or otherwise at one of the drinks.

By the time I’m done writing this piece (about 4 days later from the start) the city, to my surprise, is filled with a thick layer of snow.

Winter is saved and everybody is late for work. I will end this text with a final inspirational thought; here are the words of Homer Simpson: “Beer is the cause and solution to all of life’s problems.”

Yours Truly, Jelle Lock x

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16 econometrical

The german tank problem For this story about the German tank problem we have to go back to London, early in 1943. The Economic Warfare Division of the American Embassy started to analyze the markings and serial numbers which were obtained from German equipment in order to obtain estimates about the production of German war equipment.

> Economic intelligence played an important role in the second World War. The Allies based their strategies, for example the timing of invasions and bombing plans, on this intelligence. Before the Allies started using these serial numbers in their estimates, rather poor estimates were obtained. For example they used interrogations, secret sorces and extrapolations of pre-war data.

This led to contradictory reports.

Therefore it could be of great importance to introduce new methods for the estimates.

>>

The markings and serial numbers were used to estimate the production of tires, tanks, trucks, guns, flying bombs and rockets.

For now, we will only consider the estimation of the production of tanks. The serial numbers were obtained from captured records of tank repair depots, captured papers from divisional headquarters and captured equipment. In total, about 1200 tank chassis

serial numbers were obtained.

Using statistical methods, the Economic Warfare Division estimated the total German tank production of 1942 to be about 3400.

This estimation was way lower than the earlier generally accepted estimate of 18000 tanks, and it also turned out to be a much more precise estimator. So according to this, the German propaganda seemed to have had a great impact on the Allied intelligence.

Now, it only remains to explain the statistical methods used to obtain this estimate. We as econometricians of course find this the most interesting part of this article.

The Uniformly Minimum-Variance Unbiased Estimator (UMVUE) was used as a point estimation of the number of tanks. This estimator is given by , where is the estimation, n is the number of tanks observed and are the ordered sample serial numbers, such that

is the largest serial number obtained.

In order to show how this estimator is obtained, we should first rewrite it: . The first term states that the estimated number of tanks should at least be equal to the largest serial number, where we assume that the serial numbers start with 1.

The sum of the second and third term can be seen as the average gap (the average number of tanks between two consequtive tanks from the ordered sample) between observations in the sample.

We will first show that the obtained estimator is unbiased.

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econometrical

 17

From eq.1 and eq.2 follows:

The event

implies that must be selected from the set . There are such selections, such that:

. For unbiasedness, we should show that . So here, it suffices to show that:

thus we have shown that the estimator is unbiased.

In order to show that this estimator is the UMVUE, we now have to show that the sample maximum is a sufficient and complete statistic for the population maximum (this is left to the reader). Then the Lehmann-Scheffe theorem states that the sample maximum is the UMVUE. Jelle Huisman x

.

The markings and serial numbers were

,for

. It follows that

used to estimate the production of tires, tanks,

trucks,

guns,

flying

rockets.

This implies: Next, we compute

. for

bombs

and where the last equality uses that . which can easily be verified. Because the probabilities should sum up to 1, it follows that , which implies:

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18 foto´s > Headshot!

> tekst ×

>> > Winning was not exciting enough....

> All active members mastered the ninja style! You can’t see them.

> They found their match .

> The QFP delegation

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foto´s

19

> Surprise!

>Congratulations!

> Correcting for bias in surveys

> Sinterklaas was visiting the ED!

> “Look at me, I’m an indian.”

> The world of warcraft/ superman fans in action

>>

VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 // ESTIMATOR ECONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

20 centerfold

VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 // ESTIMATOR EC ONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

centerfold

>>

21

> After the battles in the arena the group reconciled over a drink ×

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22 qfp

QFP Sixteen bright econometric students were selected for the journey of a lifetime to the financial heart of London. This was all made possible by the hard work of the committee: Ilayda who could make all the stone-cold hearts of the bankers melt with her perfect English accent, Luuk who made promotion a smooth running train with his poster and movie making skills, Robin who joined in slightly later but was of great value for his excellent English speaking and writing skills and yours truly (who for some reason established the reputation of slave driver).

> November 2nd The first day of our quest we travelled to Amsterdam to the headquarters of Kempen & Co. We got a warm welcome with coffee and tea. After an information session with heads of different departments of Kempen we were challenged with a Sales and Trading case. The QFP-ers did everything in their power to win the case but only one team could win. Luckily everyone did well on this case and everyone got rewarded with drinks and dinner in the cozy café on the top floor of the building.

For the real die-hards the party wasn’t over after the dinner, but had only just started. We were invited to join the bankers to “De Blauwe Engel”, the café for the business elite of Amsterdam to get together for a Friday drink.

Slightly tipsy but satisfied we went back to Rotterdam for a weekend of well deserved rest.

November 5th Today, Robin’s birthday, started well at Rabobank in Rotterdam.

All the QFP-ers arrived at the office with their luggage. After a few presentations and speeddating, we played a fun game of “koehandel”, a game in which we could buy stocks at auctions and try to do hostile take-overs on stocks of other teams. The tension rose as the end came near.

Teams were aggressively taking over each other’s stocks. In the end the employees saw results they had never seen before. One team hadn’t any money left while another team didn’t have any stocks left. The most cunning team won this game.

It was time to say goodbye to Rabobank and to take our adventure abroad. We went to the station and took the train to London.

In the train there was plenty of time for an old-fashioned game of Kings. Things got slightly out of control after combining the best of the Delft Kingsrules with the Rotterdam Kingsrules. However, everyone got safe and sound in London, and the evening was not

over yet. We went to a pub to celebrate Robin´s birthday. After a fun evening we went to our hotel for a well deserved rest.

November 6th Everyone woke up after a forced intimate night with their roommates all made possible by the hotel who provided us with small beds. In the afternoon we were welcomed at the Credit Suisse office by Matthew, who apparently took part in Movember. After a brief introduction we were left alone with the lunch. This was followed by different presentations of the major departments of the bank. As the majority of the Dutch department was currently in the Netherlands, the Belgian department was responsible for this part of the afternoon. To keep the level of attention high, we did a small trading game in which four groups of two represented different market makers and the other eight groups were traders who had as aim to get the highest profit as possible. The rules of the

game were not clearly defined, and soon various loopholes were found to make money fast. We ended our day with drinks at which we could speak to different employees about their jobs. As it got darker and the desire for an evening meal increased, we said goodbye and headed for the Mexican restaurant in the middle of Canary Wharf. Still filled with energy, we decided to visit a club in the neighborhood to dance the night away (or to get intimate) and in the meantime check whether Obama would still be in office the next day.

November 7th.

The next morning, we had time to sleep late and regain our energy, although some had enough energy left to explore London in the morning. During noon, we had to get ready for our visit to the next investment bank: Morgan Stanley. Passing through the doors, we entered a large hall, where already future interns were anxiously waiting for their interviews. Luckily, our stress levels were lower, and we were welcomed on the third floor in a nice meeting room, filled with leather chairs and wooden tables.

However, our stress level did rise when we were asked during the introduction to, on the spot, come up with an investment idea. We had a presentation about Morgan Stanley, which was followed by a case which was based on actual company research of the last month. Based on the information, we had to pitch two investment ideas on which we got challenging questions. There was no

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qfp

time left for a second round, and we had drinks together with employees of the Benelux department on whom we could fire all

had small speed dates with employees of the different departments of the company, which gave us a good impression of the

>>

was largely deserted in the evening. Our company visits unfortunately had ended, but the summit of the social activities was not

our questions. In the evening we went back to our hotel and had dinner in an Italian restaurant just one block away. That evening we went to bed early, in order to be fully attentive for the next day.

“This year, we actually made it on time, thanks to the good planning skills of the Career Officer.”

November 8th, Our last full day in the City was the most intense, with two banks that were to be visited. The day started early (from a student perspective) with a visit to J.P. Morgan; ironically located in a building that was built for Enron and

later

was

occupied

by

Lehman Brothers. This year, we actually made it on time, thanks to the good planning skills of the Career Officer. Greeted by (to some) familiar faces, we could take some coffee or tea and place ourselves in one the seats for company presentations. We then

different opportunities J.P. Morgan could offer us. As noon drew closer, we left Canary Wharf towards Deutsche Bank where we had presentations and drinks in the afternoon. Finding the entrance of the building was not an easy task, but luckily everyone was there in time for the presentations. The selection of drinks and bites afterwards was very generous, such that a dinner in the evening was not required anymore. Before we left Deutsche Bank, we were treated with a sneak peak on the trading floor, which

23

reached yet! That evening we visited one of the infamous clubs that hosted the QFP-crew the year before as well. This year however, we stayed within the bounds of decency (or at least attempted to), something that however could not be said of some of the other guests in the club. After taking the last night bus (or in case of one committee member a very long walk), we returned to the hotel.

time to do some shopping or sightseeing. Our train would leave from St. Pancras Station halfway during the afternoon.

Tired from the night before, tired of the grand impressions of that week, and tired of the exhausting program, most of us slept away in the train, as we made our way back home.

Josephine Boerman (with a ‘ little bit’ of help of Robin van Straalen) ×

November 9th, Our last morning in Londen was

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24 puzzle

Puzzle 1 Nonogram

> Every number at the left of a row indicates a series of consecutive blocks which should be colored in the row. Between these series of blocks, with length equal to or bigger than 1, at least one block may not be colored. The first and the last block do not have to be empty. For the columns, the same reasoning holds.

For example, take a look at the third row. First, three consequtive blocks should be colored. Prior to these 3 blocks there may be, but not necessarily, empty blocks.

These three blocks should be followed by at least one empty block.

Finally, 4 consequtive blocks should be colored. After these 4 blocks there may be, but not necessarily, empty blocks.

This puzzle has a unique solution, which will reveal a hidden picture.

Jelle Huisman x

Puzzle 2

Because we have not received any answer on the previous puzzle, here we have placed it again and would like you to give it a second try.

We have 2 mathematicians, A and B. We pick four (different) numbers out of {1,2,…,9,10}. A and B both picked 4 numbers between 1-10, but they don’t know which. We add the numbers and tell A the result. Then we multiply the numbers and tell B the result. We put A and B

Hint: You might want to use a computer when solving this puzzle.

together in a room but they are not allowed to share their given number. We ask them how many numbers they know.

E-mail your answers to

A: I don’t know any number.

puzzle@ectrie.nl or bring your solution

B: I now know one number.

to the ED room at H10-05.

A: I now know two numbers.

B: I now know all the numbers.

What are the numbers?

Max Schotsman x

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econometrical

25

Mathematical Skiing Even without a proper spring holiday, many econometricians can be found in ski resorts during January and February. The concept of skiing is based on friction and grip. Mathematics can help you

>>

to select the optimal ski for the fastest descent. Here, we present

a simplified mathematical model that will be useful for your skiing trip this winter.

> The pressure of a skiers’ mass is divided over the entire length of the ski, with the tip and toe taking the largest part. Therefore, the pressure is distributed according to a non-uniform distribution. The way the pressure is handled is one of the most important parts of ski design. Therefore, this will form the basis of our mathematical model.

In the model, we will always deal with only one half of the ski, starting from the center. We take x as the distance from the ski’s midpoint. A key aspect of a ski is that it gets into contact with snow; thus we have to include this in our model. We take a as a variable inner boundary of the snow’s contact zone and b as the fixed outer boundary. Subsequently, we have to consider the wax that is put on skis for extra grip: g is the variable outer boundary of the ski’s grip area, the inner boundary we put 0.

Now, we have to consider the ex-

ternal factors such as the weight and friction applied on the ski. As in physics, we take F as the total downward force exerted on the ski. As we have seen, the pressure on each small part of the ski

encourage you to derive them yourself.

yourself that this is largely due to the non-uniformity of the ski’s pressure distribution.

Sierk Wiegers x

The concept of skiing is based on friction and grip. Mathematics can help you to select the optimal ski for the fastest descent. will be different. So we take a function of the point on the ski and the downward force as the pressure on some point of the ski: P(x,F). As for the friction the ski has to deal with, we put S as the variable static friction and m as the static friction coefficient of the wax.

Considering all the assumptions we have made in the previous paragraphs, we can now understand the essential formulas of our model. Since there is not enough space to elaborate on them, we

As an example, we can take the case of a stiff ski: F = C = 100, b = 100, g = 0.5 and m = 0.2. With our model, we can now calculate that S = 5. So we see that force of friction is only 5% of the downward force applied. You can derive for

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26 chef

Chef van Engelen

On the cold winter night of January 16th, the Estimator committee visited the most distinguished house in ED-history. The shortest, tallest and smartest econometrics students live on Rotterdam’s Goudsesingel: Adne van Engelen, the chef; Max van Keulen, the serving man; your honorable correspondent, the eater. Since everyone was doing what they do best, it was poised to be a night to remember.

It had been decided to start with dinner at 18:00. Against all odds, only Max Schotsman made it to the dinner on time. One of the Estimator’s correspondents caught us off guard by being about half an hour (!) early. The other three, as usual, were about half an hour late. Having forgotten the first course on the menu, the chef served the second course

when the arrived.

last

guest

finally

The tomato salad was delicious.

But since the chef did not seem to eat of his own meal, some of us did start to wonder what the tiny orange straps in the salad really were. Dinner conversation was mainly about the Estimator’s chief editor. Just returned from a

Waitress Name: Max van Keulen Startyear: 2011 Favorite dish: Sushi ED-highlight: Paris Trip (just not Friday

Chef Name: Adne van Engelen Startyear: 2011 Favorite dish: Pizza ED-highlight: Paris Trip

vacation in Thailand, he was dressed up in a most inappropriate suit for an ED-event. Since for some reason he did not want to tell too much about his holiday, the exact nature of his activities remains unknown.

After the second course, it was time for the first. Baguette with brie was served simultaneously with the main course: pasta carbonate a la Engelen. Especially the pasta was received with general acclaim. Whilst everyone ate greedily from his platter, dinner conversation became dominated by male subjects such as hookers and movies. This seemed to make the only female in the company somewhat uncomfortable.

When finally the last course of the night was served, a mix of ice creams, the chef also decided to delight us with his presence. The ED’s most fun committee managed to extract some wisdom from him. According to Chef Van Engelen: “Expensive is beautiful and I only cook the best of meals.”

With these sayings and some more beer, we closed off a very successful evening.

Sierk Wiegers x

evening and Saturday morning) VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 // ESTIMATOR ECONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

holland

Let’s be honest! The reasons for my decision to come to Rotterdam for my study were not primarily due to the country I would be living in for the next years. I had heard about the great reputation of the Erasmus University and its prestigious Econometrics program (now finally offered in an international version :-) ). About the Netherlands I did not know that much . . . yet!

Hup holland

27

>>

An international sees HOlland > As a German you occasionally visit your cheese-loving neighbors, of course, (thanks to Center Parcs) and once in a while you see those nice caravans with the pretty yellow license plates on our Autobahns (by the way: there ARE speed limits in Germany!!!).

Dutch soccer players are highly valued in the German Bundesliga, and their (ex-)wives are even more appreciated on German television. But living in Holland? No clue!

Hence, I did not really know what to expect when I came to Rotterdam last summer and had quite mixed feelings when I arrived at Rotterdam Central.

Excitement and curiosity on the one hand: living in a new environment! Finally being a university student! And: Meeting many new great people! Worries and anxieties on the other hand: Will I be able to cope with the challenge?

Is it really not a problem that I can’t speak Dutch (dankjewel was

really all I got)? And: How on earth can I find a room in the next week?

I would be lying if I did not mention that the first weeks were pretty rough and it really needs a lot of time to get settled here (have you guys any idea how long it takes to get this BSN number? :P). A great Eureka week, however, and very helpful fellow students made certainly up for the inconveniences though. And after I had finally opened a bank account, got a bike, found a room, and had bought a wind-resistant umbrella, I was ready to go.

Today, I can only conclude that the last half year here in Rotterdam was a great time of my life. I feel very welcomed in the Netherlands as an international student and enjoy the many extracurricular activities offered by such a great university. Having learnt some Dutch now (and played a couple rounds of kadootjes surprises at

Sinterklaas) gave me a nice insight in the Dutch culture, which I have started to like very much.

The people here are very open, helpful (everybody is fluent in English!), fun to be with, simply: gezellig!

I am very glad that I chose for EUR one year ago (and that they chose for me) and am very much

“Today, I can only conclude that the last half year here in Rotterdam was a great time of my life.” looking forward to the next months and years in this country.

Thank you, dear Dutchmen, for having us internationals here. We love it! Hup Holland Hup! Jan Radermacher x

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28 paintball

Paintball After working hard for all the members of the ED, the board decided to reward them by organising a fun activity to celebrate the camaraderie between all the people that are responsible for the

plane in the middle of the battlefield and the team that carries the flag for the most time in the round wins. Now the action was high, people hid in cars, lay down in bunkers through which they could shoot and people were being hit far more often than in the first rounds. It is really funny to see what happens when somebody gets shot. First you here an ‘Ouch!’ after which you could hear a guy laughing ten meters away.

People were hit on their hands, head, legs, basically any part that sticked out when you want to shoot a guy that is hiding behind some piece of wood.

events, multiple projects, recruitment activities, magazines, the website and much more. After brainstorming it was decided that the best way to celebrate the bond between the active members, was to shoot at each other with semi-automatic paintball guns. > The active members that were smart enough to clear their agenda that day gathered at Indoor Paintball Rotterdam on Wednesday the 28th of November around 16:30. Everybody assembled in the bar/restaurant that had a pretty good view of the paintball arena, this way some people already took in the strategically located spots on the map in order to cause as much damage as possible, with as little risk as possible, to the opposite team.

You could see the tension increasing the nearer we got to the start of our game.

The group was called together and everybody got their battle costumes. When everybody was dressed, it was time to go to the nearest hall next to the paintball arena. People quickly grabbed a yellow or red hat to choose what team they were in. Then the rules were explained, and you had better listened to all the rules because if you had just forgotten

one, the penalty was as follows: You must give in your gun, wear the bunny suit and run through the arena for five minutes. Which makes a great opportunity for the almost forty people in the arena.

After more fear was expressed in the explanations to get your adrenaline flowing (because you feel less pain when you it flows through your body), it was time to grab your gun and enter the arena…

The game that was first played was team deathmatch. Shoot as much of the bad guys as possible and if you are hit, return to your side of the field and start over again. Team red dominated the first game, however, the second game was for team yellow. These first few rounds were mild for the participants, it seemed like everybody needed a warming-up.

The third game was conquer the aircraft, where the goal was to capture the aircraft in the middle.

The fourth game was interesting, that game was called the president. The board was a team and the rest was a team. The board had to manage to get the president safely to the other side of the battlefield without the president being shot. The bodyguards however, had it very tough and the game ended in a sad way for the board.

“It is really funny to see what happens when somebody gets shot.”

After the games of paintball it was time to forgive each other and have a laugh about the personal highlights of the games. It was a fun afternoon and we would like to thank the board once more for this great opportunity.

Emiel Verhaert x

The next game was capture the flag, the flag was put in the air-

VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 // ESTIMATOR EC ONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

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Amsterdam

•

New York

•

Singapore

30 interview

interview NIBC On a nice Friday in the Christmas holiday the Estimator committee went to beautiful The Hague to visit the headquarters of NIBC. There, we had an interview with a recently graduated Rotterdam econometrician. The stories he had to tell of the company’s activities and his own job are relevant for any student that wants to work in the financial sector.

> Against all expectations, we arrived half an hour early at the NIBC office building. Luckily, we were allowed to wait in a luxurious waiting room. Thus after watching RTL Z and reading the Wall Street Journal, we were fully prepared when we were retrieved for the interview. We asked JanWillem Wellen, the man with which we had our interview, to introduce himself.

even had a listed position at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Nowadays, NIBC is owned by J.C. Flowers’ consortium, an American investor. NIBC focuses on corporate clients, financial institutions and entrepreneurial investors. The corporation has about 600 employees worldwide, with offices in The Hague, London, Frankfurt, Singapore and Brussels.

Jan-Willem has studied econometrics in Rotterdam and graduated in 2012. He did a master in financial economics. In 2012, he did an internship at NIBC and subsequently applied for a job there. Since December 2012, he works at the Treasury & Trading desk in the The Hague office.

First of all, we asked him what NIBC is and what their activities are. NIBC was founded in 1945 with the primary task of distributing Marshall-plan funds. Initially, the Dutch government owned 50% of shares. For a while, NIBC

We asked Jan-Willem what his precise tasks at NIBC are. He works at the treasury department of the bank. In this department, there is a Money Markets & trading team, Corporate & Commercial Treasury team, a research desk and a Credit Market Investment team. Jan-Willem works in the Corporate Treasury team, which is responsible for long-term funding, and coincides with the subject of his thesis.

Work in long-term funding is interesting, because the team constantly has to adapt to new ma-

cro-economic circumstances.

Learning how a financial institution like a bank responds to new economic situations has been his best experience at NIBC so far.

Also, his department has a lot of contact and interaction with other departments at the bank. There is a commercial side attached to his tasks as well, since the treasury department has to make sure the bank well funded at all times by managing NIBC’s debt investor relations. Besides, he is researching the posting of collateral for derivative positions. He is trying to find out whether collateral can be deposited more efficiently.

Then, we asked him if it is possible to switch between positions and offices within NIBC. JanWillem knows several people that went to another department.

According to him, it is not difficult to find the department that interests you most. It is also possible to transfer to an international office.

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interview

The conversation went to the subject of the relevance of your study.

Jan-Willem says that while your study teaches you the necessary techniques and intuition, the biggest part of his activities were taught to him by NIBC. Working at a financial institution is just not something that you can completely comprehend at a university.

Subsequently, we asked him a very practical and relevant question: what are the opportunities for econometricians at NIBC? Well, they are numerous.

According to Jan-Willem, every bank is looking for skilled quantitative people. With econometrics, you will have a head start on other students that will be very useful when applying for a job. This applies not only to specific departments such as risk, but on almost every department within the bank.

Because of Jan-Willem’s extensive experience with studying econometrics in Rotterdam, we

>>

asked him what would be his most important advice to current students. Jan-Willem believes that, next to good results on your study, it is extremely important to

learning still needs to be done after your study. We would like to thank Jan-Willem Wellen and NIBC for this interesting interview. After a last look upon the

“Learning how a financial institution like a bank responds to new economic situati-

31

Every person who starts working at NIBC automatically enters a special program: the Analyst Program.

This program exists of a year wherein four times a week modules will be organized for financial and personal development.

Other elements of this program include a teambuilding day, a mentor event and a closing event. There also is a local pub in the NIBC building. The NIBCYoung organizes a lot of things for the young employees at NIBC. One of these activities is a pub quiz what is held regularly. These really become a competition . So there is much more at NIBC besides working!

ons has been his best experience at NIBC so far. “ develop yourself in other fields.

Besides what you do, companies also want to see that you have been busy with other activities beside your studies. Also, he advises to enjoy your student life while it lasts.

idyllic Peace Palace, we went back to the big city of Rotterdam with pain in our hearts.

Sierk Wiegers x

With Jan-Willem’s advice, we concluded a very insightful afternoon at NIBC The Hague. We have learned more how it is to work at a financial institution. Also, we have come to realize that a lot of

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32 ECT

inhouse day ECT

It was a typical Dutch day. It was rainy, windy and cold. So it was a perfect day to go somewhere typical Dutch too: the harbour. The European Container Terminal (ECT), the biggest of Europe. We departed from the campus, accompanied by Prof. Dekker, who helped organize this day. On the way to the ECT he wasn’t a pro-

>>

fessor for a day, but a tour guide. He told us everything about the logistics we saw. > When we arrived at the ECT the bus gave us a tour in the ECT area. We drove through all the trucks and trains at the terrain and we were really at the place where it all happens. It’s fascinating to see. At the end of the tour in the ECT we stopped at the place where all the ships are unloaded.

Only the cranes are manned, all

about the ECT. How big it is and what they do. Especially the last aspect was interesting because nobody knew exactly what they do. After the presentation about the ECT, there was a presentation from Prof. Dr. Ir. Dekker about harbour logistics and a presentation about the thesis from Bart van Riessen. His subject was the

transport of containers went on.

The dark sky gave an extra dimension to the place and while driving back to the campus the beautiful skyline of Rotterdam welcomed us and if you looked back the skyline of the harbour said goodbye.

Ruud van Luijk x

This was a perfect example of what you can do with your master Quantative Logistics. the rest is automatic. This was the real peak of the day.

After the tour we went to the office of the ECT. A somewhat small building in the huge harbour. Here we got a presentation

European Gateway, from the ECT. This was a perfect example of what you can do with your master Quantative Logistics.

When it was time to leave it was already dark outside, but the

JAARGANG 12 EDITIE 2 // ESTIMATOR ECONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

NY drink

With everyone back from winter break, it was time for another Social drink. On Thursday the 10th of January the ED New Years drink was held. A place to socialize with other econometricians, share your readjusted life goals after the results from the second semester and share stories from your break. The drink was very well attended, with even the internationals well represented.

New years drink > The location was the now wellknown Café Oost, on the Oostzeedijk. For those not familiar with the ED-drinks: all drinks, except for mixers, are 50 cents.

bined with over the top nationalistic music to inspire students to join the IRP, or even organise it next year. For any questions about joining the IRP or about life in ge-

33

>>

the most attendees I’ve ever seen at an ED-drink. See you at the next one!

Max Schotsman x

Feel free to contact Tjian Lam anytime, he is usually reachable around 3AM. The result is a big group of econometricians.

The drink was not only dedicated to the New Year, but also the venue to show the IRP (Study Project ED) 2013- 2014 promotion clip made by the IRP committee to showcase the location of International Research Project.

Images of North America com-

neral feel free to contact Tjian Lam anytime, he is usually reachable around 3AM. Eventually the bar started emptying. People were going home, went into town to continue their drinking or most likely went somewhere to solve mathematical problems or optimize something.

All in all it was a great drink, with

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34 BETA

beta In the afternoon of Friday the 18th of January it was time for the first BETA in the history of the ED. BETA stands for Best Econometric Thesis Award and is organized be the ED in association with the Econometric Institute and Veneficus. There were five nominees for the award and each of the four master directions was represented. Quantitative Finance was the only direction that counted two nominees. The winner of this thesis award won €1000,-, but all the others also won a reward of €250,euro for their interesting and innovative masters thesis.

> The event started at 12.30 with some coffee and tee. Soon after that, everybody was invited to enter CB-02 and the ceremony started. Tjian Lam announced what the program would be and soon after that Mr. Franses gave the opening speech, which was mostly about his own, hand-written thesis and how much he enjoyed writing that thesis. Surely, all the nominees had enjoyed writing theirs just as much and he wished the nominees good luck with their presentation.

After this speech, the representative of Veneficus, mr. Van Der Zon got the floor. He told about his company, which is located in Rotterdam and where they concentrate on data-analysis, clearly a great place for econometricians. He also told why his company wanted to sponsor the BETA. Now it was time for the presentation of the first nominee, Tom Boot. Tom was nominated by the

specialization Econometrics and he wrote his masters thesis about how to break up with inflation. He investigated the relation between inflation and its subindices using a Bayesian VAR (Vector Auto Regression) model. It occurred to me that Tom didn’t seem to be nervous at all. Due to his very interesting, good to follow presentation and Toms loose way of talking the presentation was over before I knew it.

The second nominee was from the direction ‘Operational Research and Quantitative Logistics’. His name was Harwin de Vries and his thesis was named ‘Optimising Africa’. In his introduction he told about all the diseases truck drivers in Africa had to deal with and how this leads to unbelievable low life expectancies. Clearly, there had to come a solution for this large problem, since truck drivers are important for the economy in Africa.

Therefore there have to come

more health centers along the African highway. Those health centers must be built on strategic places and Harwin investigated were exactly they had to be built to maximize the utility for the truck drivers.

Next up was the presentation of Joann de Zegher. Unfortunately for us, Joann was at Stanford University that very moment, so she was unable to do the presentation. She did make us a filmpresentation however so that we could see what she wrote her thesis about. Joann was one of the nominees for the master Quantitative Finance and her thesis was about the implications of tail risk for portfolio management. In a rapid pace, she told us about what she had investigated, namely whether tail risks could be pro-actively managed in the portfolio construction process, and what the conclusion was.

Ten minutes later the word was

>>

given to Bart Keijsers, also from the Quantitative Finance master.

He named his thesis ‘Relating LGD for Bank Loans to the state of the world’. Here, LGD stands for Loss Given Default. When a borrower is unable to meet his obligations, a lender can incur losses.

The LGD measures this loss and is a number between 0 (if no loss) and 1 (if complete loss). As its thesis-title stated, Bart related this number for bank loans to the state of the world.

The last presentation was from Oscar Westerhof. He represented

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beta

35

minees would have the honor to call him- or herself the winner of the very first Best Econometric Thesis Award. Since all the presentations were very interesting and also totally different, this must have been a hard choice for the jury. Luckily for the visitors and especially for the nominees, they didn’t take too much time.

Also, Mr. D.J. van Dijk , who spoke on behalf of the jury, limited the length of his speech and announced rather quickly that Harwin de Vries, who wrote the ‘Optimising Africa’- thesis was the winner of the first BETA ever.

He was the lucky winner of the €1000,- reward. But every one of the nominees had written an excellent thesis, so soon after Harwin got his price, the others were asked to come to the front.

They got their €250,- reward and some pictures were taken of the writers of the five best econometric theses this year.

With that, the ceremony was over.

It was time to talk to each other about how great the nominees had done, how nervous some of them seemed and how proud they must be of themselves. This was done in the C-hall where drinks was served. We can look back on a very successful first BETA, which will hopefully not be the last!

Marij van Leeuwen x the master Quantitative Marketing and in his thesis he analyzed the cross category dependence and consumer segmentation through a multivariate

snacks and pizzas. Though there are a lot more categories in real life, Oscar showed us some interesting results. He also mentioned that his model could be ex-

This must have been a hard choice for the jury. logit model. So he invested what consumers of supermarkets also bought when they were buying cereals for instance. He chose four product categories, namely carbonated drinks, cereals,

panded to become even more useful in real life.

Now that all the nominees had given their presentation, it was finally time to hear which of the no-

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36 find your match

Find your match The second edition of the Find Your Match event took place on Tuesday, the 22nd of January. The location of this event was the Faculty Club, on H17. This was, at least in my opinion, an improvement compared to the first edition, when this event took place in café Siena. All the participants were kindly requested to dress formally, which they did.

> This event can be seen as a speed date event between companies and students. Needless to say, this event is very interesting for both the companies and the students. This is an excellent opportunity for the students to ask the companies about (graduation) internships and job opportunities.

The companies of course want econometricians to apply for

opportunity to have some interesting conversations. The companies present were the following: ABN AMRO, AEGON, Ormit, Towers Watson, KPMG, Capgemini, Gibbs, Duisenberg School of Finance (DSF) and MICompany. So all the specializations of Econometrics were represented at this event, some companies even have opportuni-

>>

skills, which econometricians of course have, regardless of their specialization.

The set-up of this event is as follows: two representatives (except for DSF, whom had only one representative) of the companies receive one student at a time. The course of this conversation is different for every company. You can

Every student was given the opportunity to have some interesting conversation. these positions. Beforehand, you could give up your top three of companies you would like to be assigned to. In total every student was assigned to about six companies, mostly consisting of the student’s top three and three companies that lie in the same direction as the ones in the student’s top three. There were companies present from every direction, such that every student was given the

ties in more specializations.

However, for almost all companies you don’t necessary have to choose a specific specialization in order to be able to get a job. Of course most students choose something they are interested in, which most of the time also is their master specialization. But one of the things you need in order to work at the companies present is to have analytical

expect questions as: “What do you expect from this conversation?”, “Could you tell something about yourself?” and “What do you think we can offer you?” It also happens that they start talking about what they do and all the interesting opportunities they have for you.

Then you are asked which of these opportunities appeal to you.

For most of the students this is a pretty hard question because they

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find your match

 37

and would like to know more about.

Altogether, I think this second edition of the Find Your Match was very successful. I got the idea that the representatives of the companies and the other students also found it successful, therefore it would be nice to carry on this event in the next year.

Jelle Huisman x

have only just heard of these opportunities. However, now that you know these possibilities, you can reconsider your thoughts and contact the company when you have found out what you would like to do. For this, the companies give their business cards, making it convenient to contact them. But when the conversation went very well, and you have made the representatives enthusiastic about yourself, they may offer to contact you by themselves when they find something that suits you. After seven minutes a bell rings, and the companies receive another

student for seven minutes. The student then has at least one round (seven minutes) to relax, take a drink and talk with the other students before the next conversation starts. After ten rounds, everyone had a break for about 10 minutes before the next conversations started. Then after the break there were nine more rounds, coming to a total of 19 rounds.

This series of dates was followed by a drink, where you could once again have a chat with the companies you found most interesting

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38 studysection

educationboard Dear everyone!

Welcome in a new year, 2013! Let me first introduce myself. My name is Philo Meerman, and I am taking over Merel Tilmans’ position as a Student member of the Education Board, on behalf of all econometricians. Starting from last December I will also be the First Ambassador for the Education Marketing department of the ESE, and you can find me at room H6-01.

2013 is going to be a special year for the Erasmus University. This is because the University is going to celebrate its centennial! EUR exists for a hundred years, and you’ll definitely notice that. And to start off with 2013 properly, I would like to give you some great news.

As most of econometrics students have experienced, the H3-floor is not the most climate controlled area on campus. As you might have noticed already, the bottom floor of the H-building is locked down for renovations. Reason to do this is because most likely the computer-rooms are going to move to the HT-floor when the renovations have finished. Unfortunately this won’t be before summer 2013, but better late than never!

Some other great news, the Econometrics bachelor programme of the ESE has topped the league table of Keuzegids Universiteiten 2013. The Keuzegids league table compares bachelor programmes based on the opinions of students and experts, one more reason to be proud on what we do.

Important for all BA-3 students, the deadline for registering the Bachelor Seminars has expired. If you haven’t registered yet while you should have, make sure you go to the study adviser as soon as possible. Only through the study adviser you can make a shot on attending the Seminars after all, but no guarantees!

Last thing for this issue of Estimator, ESE is looking for ambassadors especially for both Econometrie and Econometrics. The deadline for applying is end of April, so no worries yet. But we would definitely like to have foreign ambassadors for the team as well. Are you interested? You can always send me an e-mail, or wait for the applications within a couple of months.

Looking towards the exams of the third block, I wish you good luck, that’s for the first issue of 2013!

Kind regards, Philo Meerman Student member of the Education Board and First Ambassador of Econometrics Room: H6-01 E-mail: meerman@ese.eur.nl P.S. On behalf of the Education Board, I would like to give you the opportunity to come up with an idea on the following. There is enthusiasm to set apart a couple computers to us! Of course this is good news, but… the problem is that there is no executable solution to the question how to realize this yet. This is why I ask you to come up with a unique, perfectly executable solution to set apart computers for us, econometrics students, only! Send an e-mail to me and if your idea passes the board, you’ll be granted the title of Student of the month!

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studysection

39

Educationcommittee Dear fellow students, As we are already a few weeks into 2013, we hope that all of you are achieving your goals. And even if you’re not: stay dedicated and keep trying because it is never too late! Proof of dedication and hard work paying off is for example the fact that the Bachelor in Econometrics and Operations Research at the EUR was listed as the country’s best econometrics programme by the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2013!

Both experts and students valued the broadness and excellence of the programme.

Since this year, our econometrics programme is also available in an international version. In order to guarantee the same constant improvements as in the Dutch programme, the Education Committee has welcomed a student from the international course. His name is Jan Radermacher and he is originally from Germany but has lived in many other countries before. We expect Jan to be of great value not only for adjustments to the programme but also to give an inside view on an international study experience in the Netherlands. Therefore, we want to ask all international students to come to Jan with their concerns about the programme. Jan is also part of the freshmen committee so finding him should not be a problem. To keep the balance between student and staff members, we are happy that Dr. Van der Wel has joined the our committee.

In the Education Committee we have recently made it possible for Master students of Econometrics programmes to enter the EI lab.

This room was empty a lot and now these students have a much larger chance of finding an available computer. If you are a Master student and have problems logging in, you can always visit the IT support at H4.

Also, a useful feedback feature that has been introduced this year for all programmes at the ESE are the course evaluations in the third week of the block for the second year and higher. The first year students already had the opportunity of evaluating courses during the block by means of the guidance sessions. We think this feature is very useful for the teacher and if enough constructive feedback is supplied by students, potential problems of the course may be solved in the second part of the block. You can find the evaluations on My Page on SIN-Online. We want to emphasise that these course evaluations, just like the ones at the end of each block, are completely anonymous to the lecturer.

With that being said, we would like to wish everybody good luck with the rest of the academic year and we hope you all enjoy studying.

If you encounter any systematic problems please do not hesitate to contact us.

Luuk Maassen John Brouwer Mechteld Ferment Jan Radermacher Student members of the Education Committee Econometrics & Operational research Dr. C. Heij Dr. D. Fok Dr. W. van den Heuvel Dr. M. van der Wel Staff members of the Education Committee Econometrics & Operational research Contact: oceconometrie@gmail.com

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40 studysection WE Congratulate all graduates!

13-12-2012

17-1-2013

F.A. Bulthuis

N. Ty

Modeling dependence in state dura-

Designing robust shipping schedules

tion in the MISCAN-Colon microsimu-

using Econometrics and Management

lation model

Science

Fok, D.

Dekker, Prof.dr.ir. R.

12-12-2012

17-1-2013

B. van der Noll

R.P. Hulst

A Shrinkage Approach to Parameteri-

Stochastic

zed Portfolio Choice

Systems Applied to the Chain Conve-

Diris, B.F.

Modeling

of

Conveyor

yor at Hollander Barendrecht Gabor, A.F.

12-12-2012 J.C. Mijnarends

17-1-2013

Empirical Studies: Value Investing In

A.G. Tilgenkamp

The Corporate Bond Market

A Lifetime of Asset Allocation Reali-

Diris, B.F.

zing a real retirement Diris, B.F.

12-12-2012 M. van

Buren Quantitative Value In-

16-1-2013

vesting

K. Koutsoura

Diris, B.F.

The Long-term effect on advertising in the deodorant market of the Ne-

12-12-2012

therlands

R.T. Bissessur

Paap, prof.dr. R.

The variance risk premium in density orecasting with a Bayesian GARCH

16-1-2013

model

P.P. de Zwart

Diris, B.F.

Manipulation in High-Frequency Trading and its Effects on Volatility

12-12-2012

Scholtus, M.L.

X.Z. Jahanqier Interest Rate Modeling under Solvency II Dijk, D.J.C. van

12-12-2012 A. Oulad Said Does a new football coach lead to better results?

Franses. P.H.B.F.

17-1-2013 Y.H. Lee TNT Express - Mobile Imaging Solution: A glimpse of the future trough simulation models Farenhorst-Yuan, dr. T.

VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 // ESTIMATOR ECONOMETRISCH DISPUUT

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