Speakers
Ylva Hedén Westerdahl
Ylva Hedén Westerdahl is director of forecasting and vice director general at the National Institute of Economic Research (NIER) since 2017. Prior to NIER she was director of the National Accounts department at SCB, director of macroeconomic forecasting at the Ministry of Finance and head of applied research at the Riksbank. Ylva holds a PhD in economics from University of London, Queen Mary College. Her thesis "Productivity, upskilling, entry and exit: evidence from the UK and Swedish micro data" showed that increased competition leads to higher productivity growth in firms.
Ludwig von Auer
Ludwig von Auer (born 1966 in Erlangen, Germany) is a German economist and Professor of Public Finance at Universität Trier. He studied Economics in Kiel, Edinburgh, and London, and received his M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1992.
From 1996 to 2002, he served as Assistant Professor at Universität Magdeburg, where he was promoted to Associate Professor for International Economics from 2002 to 2006. He then held the position of Full Professor for Macroeconomics at TU Chemnitz from 2006 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been Full Professor for Public Finance at Universität Trier.
A central focus of his research is price measurement. In this context, he deals not only with intertemporal price comparisons but also with spatial price comparisons. The methodological tools used in his research range from index theory and economic theory to econometric methods.
Dr Farley Ishaak
Dr. Farley Ishaak is the Production Manager of Real Estate Prices at Statistics Netherlands (CBS). He is also affiliated with Delft University of Technology and the Amsterdam School of Real Estate. Since 2013, he has specialized in projects regarding construction, residential, and commercial property prices. His research in this field culminated in a PhD in 2025, focusing on the development of commercial property price statistics. Alongside his practical work, he has published several scientific articles on the subject.
Rohan Draper
Rohan Draper is a Senior Advisor at Statistics Denmark with 18 years of experience in official statistics, specialising in price measurement and economic indicators. He has held senior technical and leadership roles across Statistics Denmark, Statistics Sweden, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, working across the full lifecycle of economic statistics – from development to production.
Rohan's expertise in price statistics spans consumer, producer, and trade price indices, with a strong focus on methodological development, quality assurance, programme development, practical implementation, and international harmonisation. He currently works with quality and metadata frameworks at Statistics Denmark and serves on the Board for the Consumer Price Index at Statistics Sweden. He is also a Bureau member of the United Nation City Group on Service Statistics (Voorburg Group), contributing to global methodological development in service producer price statistics.
In addition to his national roles, Rohan has extensive international consulting experience, working with organisations including Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank to support capacity development within price statistics worldwide.