2016 Condliffe Memorial Lecture

This is the video of the 2016 Condliffe Memorial Lecture given at the University of Canterbury 4 July 2016 by Janet Currie, Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the Director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Well Being. The topic of the lecture was "Early Life and the Roots of Economic Inequality".

Condliffe Lecture: Department of Economics and Finance, University of Canterbury

2016 Lecture: Early Life and the Roots of Economic Inequality

Presenter:
Janet Currie
Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Policy Affairs,
Chair, Department of Economics,
Director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing,
Princeton University.

When: Monday 4 July 2016, 5:30 – 6:30pm
Where: Undercroft 101 Seminar Room, Puaka – James Hight Building

In this lecture, Professor Currie will provide an overview of the literature highlightling the importance of early childhood, discuss how to compensate for early deprivation, and share examples of successful interventions.

RSVP: This is a free public lecture. Register online through UC Connect Eventbrite

Abstract

In many industrial societies, increasing inequality has become a pressing social, political, and economic concern.  Yet the roots of adult economic inequality often lie early in life.  There is increasing evidence that adverse circumstances early in life, and even in utero, can leave lasting scars.  Yet at the same time we have learned a great deal about how to compensate for early deprivation and there are many examples of successful interventions.  Professor Currie will provide an overview of the literature highlighting the importance of early childhood and the fact that while children are fragile, they are also resilient.

About the speaker

Janet Currie is the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the Director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Well Being.  She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Econometric Society, as well as past Vice President of the American Economic Association and in-coming President of the Society of Labor Economists.  She is on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine and on the editorial board of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Her research focuses on the health and well-being of children including early intervention programs, expansions of public health insurance, public housing, and food and nutrition programs. Her current research focuses on socioeconomic differences in child health, environmental threats to children’s health, and the long term effects of poor health in early childhood.

Condliffe Lecture 2015

Dr Terry L. Anderson

Condliffe Lecture 2015

Environmental Markets:
Lessons from and for Fisheries Management

The Department of Economics and Finance is pleased to invite you to the 2015 Condliffe Lecture.

Dr Terry Anderson will discuss Free Market Environmentalism and the approach of using property rights and markets to address environmental problems, focusing on lessons from and for fisheries management in New Zealand.

Day:	Tuesday 17 November 2015
Time:	6pm –7pm
Venue:	LAWS 108 Lecture Theatre (Google map link)
RSVP:	By 5pm, Wednesday 11 November to meredith.henderson@canterbury.ac.nz

Abstract

Increased demand for environmental amenities and competition for scarce natural resources require rethinking how we manage our natural environment. The dominant management institutions have focused on top-down command-and-control regulations. Though some of these regulations have been successful in picking low hanging environmental fruit – especially in reducing air and water emissions – they have not harnessed private initiative by using property rights and markets. This approach under the banner of “free market environmentalism” shows remarkable promise for dealing with a variety of environmental problems. Fisheries management in New Zealand illustrates the potential for this approach if the necessary market institutions can be buttressed and improved. In short, environmental markets offer a promising alternative for the next generation of environmentalism.

About the speaker

Terry L. Anderson is the William A. Dunn Distinguished Senior Fellow at PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center, in Bozeman, Montana, and the John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author or editor of 38 books, including most recently, Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation (2015 with Donald Leal) andEnvironmental Markets: A Property Rights Approach (2014 with Gary Libecap). He has published widely in professional journals and the popular press, including frequent editorials in the Wall Street Journal.

Dr Anderson has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University, Basel University, Clemson University, and Cornell as well as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Canterbury.

In March 2011, he received the Liberalni Institute’s (Prague, CZ) Annual Award for his ideas promoting freedom and prosperity. Previous recipients of this award include Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Vernon Smith. In 2015, Anderson received the “Gary Walton Award for Excellence in Economic Education” from the Foundation for Teaching Economics.

Dr Anderson received his BS degree from the University of Montana in 1968 and his MA and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Washington in 1972, after which he began his 25-year teaching career at Montana State University. There he has won several teaching awards and is now Professor Emeritus.

Terry is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys fly fishing, hiking, skiing, horseback riding, and archery hunting.

Venue and Car Parking

The lecture venue is LAWS 108 lecture theatre on main campus (Google map link) and there is no charge for parking after 5:00pm. The available car parking areas are the Science car park, Law car park or Clyde car park.

For more information

Department of Economics and Finance

Phone: +64 3 364 2631

Email: meredith.henderson@canterbury.ac.nz

Quote of the day

From William Easterly's The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, p.47-8.

In 1927 an economist from New Zealand named John Bell Condliffe arrived in China for a four-month visit. [...] Condliffe (1891-1981) was a typical economist of his generation, affirming core values of individual liberty and democracy, and holding to classical economists' ideas of markets and gains from international trade. [...]

Condliffe would eventually question the role of the development experts in China. His early visit, ironically, would launch the career of such a development expert. This expert was H. D. Fong (1902-1985), an American-educated Chinese economist who would occupy the authoritarian side on the debates to come. Condliffe and Fong would become some of the first participants in the authoritarian economic development, both in China and worldwide, although both are now completely forgotten. [...]

This backdrop would eventually explain why both sides-Westerners making development efforts in China, and Chinese leaders and their advisers (including Fong)-would embrace authoritarian development ideas and reject ideas based on individual rights. It would explain why an advocate for rights-like Condliffe-would wind up, isolated, ignored, and then forgotten.

Note to Professor Easterly, John Bell Condliffe is not forgotten in New Zealand, in fact there is an annual Condliffe Memorial Lecture organised by the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Condliffe was the first Professor of Economics at Canterbury University College taking up the position in 1921. In 1915 he had graduated MA in economics from Canterbury College. He was awarded his DSc in 1927.

Condliffe 2013

Here is the video of the 2013 Condliffe Lecture given recently at the Univeristy of Canterbury by Professor Edward Glaeser under the title "What if... Our cities vanished?"

Don't forget: Condliffe Lecture 2013

What if... Our cities vanished?
Wednesday, 10 July 2013 from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Undercroft 101 Seminar Room, James Hight Building, University of Canterbury
Presenter: Professor Edward Glaeser, Harvard University

• What if humanity stopped urbanising?
• What is the role of cities in promoting economic growth?
• What are the lessons for the Christchurch rebuild from cities around the world?

Cities are often seen as the source of social problems such as poverty and crime, while we retain romantic notions of idyllic rural life. The truth is very different. In this lecture, Professor Edward Glaeser, the world’s leading expert in the economics of cities, will discuss why cities are crucial to economic development, why proximity has become ever more valuable as the cost of connecting across long distances has fallen and why, contrary to popular myths, dense urban areas are the true friends of the environment, not suburbia.

You can register for the lecture here: http://www.eventbrite.co.nz/event/7114849707/es2/?rank=1