IARIW General Conferences are held biennially, in even-numbered years, usually in one of the last two weeks of August. The IARIW also organizes occasional Special Conferences, usually held in odd-numbered years.

General Conference Format

The format for General Conferences has evolved over time, but currently has the following format:

• Sunday: arrival of delegates; welcome reception; first Council meeting;
  
• Monday: plenary and parallel sessions;
  
• Tuesday: plenary and parallel sessions; IARIW Members Meeting (evening);
  
• Wednesday: all day excursion;
  
• Thursday: plenary and parallel sessions; second Council meeting;
  
• Friday: plenary and parallel sessions; gala dinner-dance (evening); and
  
• Saturday: departure.

By tradition, virtually all delegates are present for the whole week.

General Conference Program Structure

A General Conference currently consists of (a) themed plenary and parallel sessions, (b) submitted paper parallel sessions, and (c) poster sessions.

The topics for the themed sessions, and the session organizers, are selected by the IARIW Council, after seeking proposals from IARIW members in advance of the conference, and at the Members Meeting held at the General Conference.

Session organizers for the themed sessions select the papers from proposals submitted in response to the call for papers and to personal invitations to submit proposals. Session organizers appoint session chairperson (usually one of the organizers) in consultation with the Conference Programme Committee (a sub-committee of Council).

Papers for submitted paper sessions and poster sessions are selected by the Conference Programme Committee based on proposals submitted in response to the Call for Papers. Calls for submissions of papers for all three types of sessions are advertised in the Review of Income and Wealth and on this website.

During the Conference, papers in non-poster sessions are presented by a discussant, rather than by the paper author(s). Standard practice is something like the following: if a paper is allocated 30 minutes time within a session, then the discussant speaks first (for about 20 minutes), then there is open discussion from the floor (about 5 minutes), and finally the author(s) replies to comments (about 5 minutes). The amount of time allocated for each paper depends on the number of papers in the session, which is normally a maximum of six.