What’s Wrong with the Economy—and with Economics?

February 16 2015

What’s Wrong with the Economy—and with Economics? To explore this question, The Fritt Ord Foundation, The New York Review of Books Foundation and The Dan David Prize are organising a two-day conference in New York. Among the topics to discussed are Economics after the Crash: A Discipline in Need of Renewal? and The Problem of Value: Economics as a Moral Science.

The conference will take place at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, on March 14-15 2015. Open to all, $20 admission. Please go here to register.

Programme
Saturday, March 14, 2015

10:45–11:00 am: Introduction and Welcoming Remarks

  • Professor Grete Brochmann, University of Oslo, and Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, Fritt Ord
  • Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Chairman, Dan David Foundation
  • Robert Silvers, Editor, The New York Review of Books

I. 11:00 am–12:30 pm: The Atlantic Economies Since the Crash: Secular Stagnation?
  • Chair: Robert Silvers, Editor, The New York Review of Books
  • Professor Jacob Hacker, Yale
  • Professor Edmund Phelps, Columbia, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics 2006

12:30–1:30 pm: LUNCH

II. 1:30–3:00 pm: Economics after the Crash: A Discipline in Need of Renewal?

  • Chair: Professor Katherine Fleming, Director of the Remarque Institute, New York University
  • Professor Benjamin Friedman, Harvard University
  • Professor Paul Krugman, Princeton University, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 2008
  • Professor Lord Skidelsky, University of Warwick, and House of Lords, UK

3:00–3:30: COFFEE BREAK

III. 3:30–5:00 pm: Who and Where Are the Economists?

  • Professor David Colander, Middlebury College, Vermont
  • Professor Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Professor Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame

Sunday, March 15, 2015

IV. 10:00–11:30 am: The Problem of Value: Economics as a Moral Science

  • Chair: Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Dan David Foundation
  • Professsor Grete Brochmann, University of Oslo
  • Professor Richard Sennett, New York University
  • Professor Jeremy Waldron, New York University

11:30 am–12:00 pm: COFFEE BREAK

V. 12:00–1:30 pm: Making Sense of the Information Economy: A Mixed Record?

  • Chair: Dr Martha Poon, Senior Research Fellow, Data and Society Research Institute, New York
  • Professor Paul Duguid, University of California, Berkeley
  • Simon Head, New York University and Oxford
  • Professor Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School

1:30–2.30 pm: LUNCH

VI. 2:30–4:00 pm: The Education of Economists

  • Professor Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University
  • Jeff Madrick, Century Foundation, New York, Editor of ‘Challenge’ Magazine

BIOGRAPHIES

GRETE BROCHMANN is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fritt Ord Foundation, and Professor of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Scandinavia: Governing Immigration in Advanced Welfare States, in James and Hollifield (eds) Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective(2014).

DAVID COLANDER is Professor of Economics at Middlebury College, Vermont. He is the author, with Roland Kupers, of Complexity And The Art of Public Policy: Solving Society’s Problems From the Bottom Up (2014).

JEFFERSON COWIE is Professor of Labor history at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. He is the author of Stayin’ Alive: The 1970’s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010).

PAUL DUGUID is Professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author, with John Seely Brown, of The Social Life of Information (2000).

GERALD EPSTEIN is Professor of Economics at The University of Massachusetts, Amhurst. He is the editor, with Erinc Yeldan, of Beyond Inflation Targeting: Monetary Policy for Employment Generation and Poverty Reduction (2010).

KATHERINE FLEMING is Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization, and NYU Vice Chancellor for Europe. She is the author of Greece: A Jewish History (2008).

BENJAMIN FRIEDMAN is Professor of Political Economy at Harvard. He is the author of The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2006).

JACOB HACKER is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He is the author, with Paul Pierson, of Winner Take All Politics (2010).

SIMON HEAD is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Knowledge, New York University. He is the author of Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans (2014).

PAUL KRUGMAN is Professor of Economics at Princeton University, and won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008. He is a columnist for The New York Times and author of End This Depression Now (2012).

JEFF MADRICK is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation in New York, and Editor of Challenge Magazine. He is the author of Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World (2014).

PHILIP MIROWSKI is Professor of Economics at Notre Dame University. He is the author of Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science (2002).

EDMUND PHELPS is Professor of Economics at Columbia University and won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2006. He is the author of Mass Flourish: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change.

MARTHA POON is a Senior Research Fellow at The Data & Society Research Institute in New York. She is the author of From New Deal Institutions to Capital Markets; Commercial Consumer Risk Scores and The Making of Subprime Mortgage Finance (2009).

ITAMAR RABINOVICH is Chairman of The Dan David Foundation and was Ambassador of Israel to the United States 1993–1996. He is the author of The Lingering Conflict: Israel, The Arabs and The Middle East (2012).

RICHARD SENNETT is Professor of Sociology at New York University and at The London School of Economics. He is the author of Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (2013).

ROBERT SILVERS is Editor of The New York Review of Books. He is the editor, with Ian Buruma, of The New York Review Abroad: Fifty Years of International Reportage(2013).

ROBERT SKIDELSKY is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick UK, and a member of the House of Lords. He is the author, with Edward Skidelsky, of How Much Is Enough? Money and The Good Life (2012).

JEREMY WALDRON is University Professor of Law at New York University. He is the author of The Harm in Hate Speech (2012).

SHOSHANA ZUBOFF is Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, and Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration Emerita, Harvard Business School. She is the author of Master or Slave? The Fight for the Soul of Our Information Civilization (forthcoming).

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