The March 1, 2016 issue of Thinking Aloud has been dedicated to covering the news and happenings of SANEM Annual Economists’ Conference 2016, as this conference also brings a new onset for the organization. The first page article on “Is Bangladesh poised for leaping towards a middle income country?” emphasizes on the importance of assessing the country’s current status of social infrastructure in achieving desired level of economic growth rate and targeted per capita income level. On its journey towards becoming a middle income country, Bangladesh needs to increase public expenditures on education and health as shares of GDP substantially from the current insignificant levels. In pages two and three, readers will get a brief review of different sessions of the conference including the inaugural session, four parallel sessions named “Economic Growth”, “Poverty and Human Development”, “Trade and Regional Integration”, and “Sectoral Economy”. Along with the parallel sessions, there was a book launching ceremony that took place during the conference to launch the book on “Structural Change and Dynamics of Labor Markets in Bangladesh: Studies on Labor and Employment”. The last session of the conference was a session for young budding researchers where three BSS Economics students presented their papers. Readers will get a glimpse of the conference in photographs provided on the fourth page. SANEM-DFID workshop news, book launching ceremony at the University of Dhaka and other events news have also been provided on the last page. Furthermore, this month has been an exciting one for SANEM as the organization has endorsed its new logo which is visible on Thinking Aloud, SANEM’s website and other communication materials.
