Date
Time
Venue

Chairman

7 January 09 (Wednesday)
6.00pm - 7.15pm (light refreshment provided at 5.15 pm)
CSC Auditorium, Level 1
Civil Service College
31 North Buona Vista Rd, S275983
map of CSC , carpark location
Prof Euston Quah
Editor, Singapore Economic Review

As the impact of the financial crisis spreads to the real economy, there is growing discussion in academic as well as policy circles of how governments should respond to the inevitable - and probably prolonged - economic slowdown.  In the ensuing debate, prevailing conventional wisdoms are being jettisoned, old theories are being revived, and new ideas are emerging. The neoclassical faith in the self-correcting powers of the market is, once again, being challenged by the Keynesian ideas of liquidity traps, deficit spending, and market-stabilising regulations. As the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman argues, we are witnessing "the return of depression economics." At the same time, new and provocative ideas are reshaping the economics discipline.

In this lecture, renowned Berkeley economics professor Bradford DeLong will take a step back to examine how economic ideas and theories have evolved over the past two centuries. He will also provide insights on where the subject is headed.  What can we learn from  Say's Law, Malthus versus Ricardo, Karl Marx, the Great Crash of the 1920, Ludwig von Mises, Keynes, counter-cyclical public spending and Friedman's Monetary History? What lessons does this crisis hold for economists and for macroeconomic policymakers?  If economic policies in the 1950s-1970s described a Keynesian Consensus, and policies in the 1980s-2000s reflected a market-oriented Washington Consensus, how would economic historians in the future describe policies in the post-2010 era?  Will policies be more pragmatic and less bound by ideology?  Or will we witness a powerful pushback against market capitalism, leading to an increase in protectionism and reversal of globalization?

Brad DeLong is a professor in the Department of Economics at U.C. Berkeley; chair of the Berkeley International and Area Studies Political Economy major; a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. From 1993 to 1995 he worked for the U.S. Treasury as a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy. While in the Clinton administration, reporting to Assistant Secretary Alicia Munnell, he worked on the Clinton Administration's 1993 budget, on the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on macroeconomic policy, on the unsuccessful health care reform effort, and on many other issues.

Before joining the Treasury Department he was Danziger Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He has also been a John M. Olin Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Boston University, and a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at M.I.T. He has written on, among other topics, the evolution and functioning of the U.S. and other nations' stock markets, the course and determinants of long-run economic growth, the making of economic policy, the changing nature of the American business cycle, and the history of economic thought.

Admission is free. As seats are limited, please register via https://wis.ntu.edu.sg/pls/webexe/REGISTER_NTU.REGISTER?EVENT_ID=OA08121015243748. Please do not hesitate to contact Joey at 65148364 or email kqkek@ntu.edu.sg for more information.