By Laws
By Laws of SIdE, version November 2010
Article I. Language of SIdE
Section 1. Language
Section 1.1. The working language of SIdE shall be English. All documents of SIdE shall be written in English. Documents required by the Italian law shall be produced both in Italian and in English.
Section 1.2. The website of SIdE shall be in English.
Article II. Offices
Section 1. Duties
Section 1.1. The President shall preside at Steering Committee meetings and at the general Assembly of SIdE. The President shall chair the Steering Committee. The President, in consultation with the Past President and President-Elect and the Steering Committee, shall make appointments to the offices listed below, chosen among the Steering Committee members.
Section 1.2. The Steering Committee Secretary shall serve as recording secretary of the Assembly and the Steering Committee meetings.
Section 1.3. The Treasurer shall oversee the receipt and disbursement of all funds, shall ensure that proper accounts of all financial transactions are kept, shall report to the Steering committee and shall make an annual financial report to the Assembly. This financial report shall be presented and approved by the Assembly within the end of April following the close of the fiscal year being reported upon.
Section 1.4. The Program Secretary shall arrange and coordinate all activities concerned with meetings of SIdE, including the general Assembly of members, conferences, workshops, Steering Committee meetings.
Section 1.5. The Information Technology Secretary shall arrange and coordinate all activities concerned with information management for SIdE.
Section 1.6. The SIdE Web Editor shall be responsible for developing and maintaining a formal SIDE World Wide Web site in consultation with the Steering Committee.
Section 1.7. The SIdE Bulletin Editor shall be responsible for collecting news on the life of SIdE, to be published online in consultation with the SIdE Web Editor.
Section 1.8. The President, and each of the other Officers listed in Sections 1.2-1.7, shall submit an annual written report to the general Assembly.
Section 2. Tenure and Re-election
Section 2.1. For the purpose of defining the terms of the Steering Committee members, a year is the calendar year.
Section 2.2. Presidents are elected to serve a first year as President-Elect, a second year as President, and a third year as Past President. Presidents are ineligible for nomination for six years after leaving office.
Section 2.3. If the President is absent or incapacitated, the Past-President shall act as President, or in case the Past-President is also absent or incapacitated, the President-Elect so shall act.
Section 3. Vacancies
Section 3.1. In the event of the incapacity of any Officer, her/his place will remain vacant until the next Annual Elections. Incapacity shall be determined by the Steering Committee.
Article III. The Steering Committee
Section 1. The Steering Committee is composed of six elected members plus the President, the Past President and the President-Elect.
Section 2. Every year three members shall be elected to the Steering Committee by the Members of SIdE to serve for a term of three years. Vacancies in the elected Steering Committee occurring subsequent to an election shall not be filled for the unexpired term until the next election.
Section 3. An elected member of the Steering Committee who has completed a three-year term on the Steering Committee shall not be eligible for nomination to the Steering Committee for six years following the term of office.
Section 4.
a) The Steering Committee shall meet in person at least once a year.
b) Meetings shall be held on a least thirty days notice at the call of the President, or the call of any five members of the Steering Committee.
c) Any member of the Steering Committee unable to be present may appoint a Member as proxy by writing an email to the Steering Committee Secretary.
d) A quorum shall be a simple majority of the Steering Committee.
e) In case the number of affirmative votes equals the number of steering committee members on duty divided by two, the affirmative votes prevail if they include the vote of the President, and the motion is defeated otherwise.
Section 5. Motions may be presented to the Steering Committee between regular meetings by any of its members. Presentation of a motion shall be followed by a 7-day discussion period before the vote is called by the President. After the vote is called, Steering Committee members have 10 days to send their vote anonymously. A motion passes once affirmative votes are received from a majority of the Steering Committee. If sufficient affirmative votes are not received within the 10 voting days, the motion is defeated. After the 10 day voting period, the vote tally (number of votes for, against and abstaining) will be reported to the Steering Committee by the President.
Article IV. Members
Section 1. Regular members
Section 1.1 SIdE admits as regular members persons who have an interest in econometrics. Regular members of SIdE are admitted upon application to the Steering Committee. Together with the application to SIdE, prospective regular members give their consent to the distribution of their CV and list of publications, in the spirit of disclosure of research in econometrics stated in the goals of SIdE.
Section 1.2 The interest in econometrics is identified by the curriculum of studies and/or the scientific or professional career. The Steering Committee resolution approving the application of new regular members is approved by an absolute majority rule.
Section 1.3 The Steering Committee may require extra information from the applicant in order to make a decision; in no case shall the Steering Committee take longer than 6 months from the initial filing in order to make a decision. At the end of the year the Steering Committee shall decide all pending applications. In case one application is not accepted, the applicant may apply again not before a period of 2 years.
Section 2. Supporting members
Section 2.1 Non-profit, for-profit and public organizations may become supporting members of SIdE. Supporting members of SIdE are admitted upon application to the Steering Committee. Together with the application to SIdE, prospective supporting members underwrite the aims of SIdE and agree not to use their supporting membership to directly advertise their views or products.
Section 2.2 Supporting members pay a supporting annual due decided by the Steering Committee.
Section 3. Loss of membership
Section 3.1 Membership is lost when members withdraw their membership, when they do not pay the annual dues, or for serious misbehavior. The decision of exclusion for serious misbehavior is adopted by a majority of regular members following a proposal by the Steering Committee.
Article V. Dues
Section 1. Regular and supporting members shall pay dues on a calendar year basis at rates set by the Steering Committee and disclosed no later than the end of June in the previous year. Annual dues shall be payable on the first day of January of each year. The Steering Committee may set lower dues for regular members who have not completed their PhD.
Section 2. Each year between the first day of March and the first day of July, it shall be the duty of the Treasurer to notify anyone whose dues are in arrears by email. If the Treasurer does not receive payment of such dues within eighty (80) days from the date of such notice, the Treasurer shall report the delinquent to the Steering Committee, who may suspend the delinquent from membership. A suspended member shall be reinstated to membership for a given calendar year if the Treasurer receives payment of dues before the end of that calendar year.
Article VI. Annual general assembly
Section 1. Call for the general Assembly
Section 1.1. The Steering Committee shall convene the general Assembly of the members. The general Assembly may also be requested by half plus one of the regular members, who propose the agenda. In this case the Assembly shall be convened within thirty days after the receipt of the request.
Section 1.2. The call for the general Assembly should be posted in the headquarters of SIdE, or sent via registered mail, or by hand, e-mail or fax with proof of receipt, at least eight days before the meeting. In urgent cases, this period can be decreased to three days before the meeting. Usually the meeting of the general Assembly is announced 3 to 6 months in advance.
Section 1.3. The Assembly at the “first call for meeting” is considered regularly constituted with the presence of a majority (half plus one) of regular members. The Assembly, at the “second call for meeting” is considered duly constituted regardless of the number of members that are present. The resolutions are approved if they get a favorable vote by the majority of attending regular members.
Section 2. Agenda
Section 2.1. The budget of SIdE is approved by all regular members by April 30 in every calendar year, possibly at the general Assembly.
Section 2.2. In case the general Assembly takes place before the final version of the Budget is ready, a preliminary version of it will be approved at the general Assembly. The final version of the Budget shall be approved by regular members of SIdE via an electronic vote called by the President.
Section 2.3. The minutes of each Assembly must be prepared by the Secretary of the Steering Committee or by his/her deputy. The minutes, signed by the President and the Secretary or the Secretary deputy, are stored in SIdE Digital Archives and all members have access to them via SIdE website.
Section 3. Location and voting
Section 3.1. Meetings of the Assembly may take place by tele- or video-conference, with members located in various adjacent or distant locations, provided the following conditions are met and acknowledged in the minutes of the meeting: – the President and the Secretary must be in the same location; they will write and sign the minutes; – the chairman of the Assembly must be able to ascertain the identity and legitimacy of all members that are present at the meeting, to regulate the course of the meeting and to declare the results of each vote; – the Secretary must be able to collect all relevant information and documentation to be included in the minutes; – all members that participate at the meeting must be able to speak and to vote simultaneously on each item on the agenda, as well as to view, receive or transmit relevant documents.
Section 3.2. The voting procedures of regular members include the possibility of distance voting.
Article VII. Nomination and Elections
Section 1. Nominations
Section 1.1. The President, in consultation with the President-Elect and the Past President, shall appoint a Nominating Committee before the end of January of the year he or she retires as President and shall announce their names on SIdE website. This Committee shall submit to the Members, through the Steering Committee Secretary, before the end of June at least one nomination for President-Elect, and a slate containing at least twice as many names as the number of anticipated vacancies on the Steering Committee.
Section 1.2. All the nominated people shall be members of SIdE, with a distinguished academic or professional career within the field of econometrics, which must be their major area of interest, as demonstrated by their curriculum vitae.
Section 1.3. Requests for nominations may be made for President-Elect or for the Steering Committee members by a petition signed by at least 3 members. Such requests are submitted to the Nomination committee. The Nomination Committee shall always add other nominations. The Nomination Committee is responsible to control the conditions set forth in Section 1.2 for each nominee, to acquire the consent of the persons involved to serve for the given office, and to write a report accompanying the nominations.
Section 2. Elections
Section 2.1 At the end of June, the President announces the period of 15 days during which the Annual Election shall take place. Such a period shall be chosen during the months of September and October. The voting takes places only electronically. All regular members have one vote for each vacant office.
Section 2.2 Information concerning the ballots for the Annual Election must be sent to regular members at least 90 days before the last day of voting by email. The names of the nominees shall be placed on the ballot in random order. Ballots shall be cast electronically.
Section 2.3 The President shall announce new elected members no later than 15 days after the close of the Annual Election.
Article VIII. Dissolution Statement
In the event of termination or dissolution of SIdE, the Steering Committee shall, after payment of all the liabilities of SIdE, dispose of all of the assets of SIdE exclusively for the objectives of SIdE, in such manner as the Steering Committee shall determine, or to such organization or organizations exclusively for charitable, educational, or scientific purposes.
Article IX. Amendments
Section 1. An Amendment to these By-Laws may be proposed by a two-thirds majority vote of the Steering Committee or by a petition signed by at least 10% of the regular members of SIdE.
Section 2. Proposed amendments shall be submitted through the Steering Committee Secretary, who shall submit them within 60 days to regular members of SIdE for an electronic vote.
Section 3. A proposed amendment shall require for its adoption a favorable vote of a majority of the regular members voting.
Section 4. If at a regularly scheduled Steering Committee meeting three-fourths of the Steering Committee Members affirm that an emergency exists which precludes a electronic ballot, then the By-Laws may be amended at a regularly scheduled annual general Assembly.
Section 5. A proposed amendment to the By-Laws shall require for its adoption a favorable vote of two-thirds of the regular members voting at an annual general Assembly.
Section 6. Any amendments to the Constitution, approved by the Steering Committee, must be ratified by the general Assembly by a majority of the regular members present.