Distinguished Lectures | AY2017-20

Abstract 

Professor List uses field experiments to learn about the economics of life and to improve people's outcomes. He has generated data that has provided insights into many subsets of microeconomics including pricing behavior, discrimination in the marketplace, the valuation of non-marketed goods and services, public good provisioning, behavioral anomalies, charitable giving, auction theory, and the role of the market in the development of rationality. In this lecture, he will focus on how to use field experiments to make the world a better place through a wide range of issues, including charitable giving, education, lowering inequality and helping organizations as varied as Uber, Lyft and the UK government.

Biography

John A. List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. He received his B.S. in economics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Ph.D. in economics at the University of Wyoming. List joined the UChicago faculty in 2005, and served as Chairman of the Department of Economics from 2012-2018. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, he was a professor at the University of Central Florida, University of Arizona, and University of Maryland.

His research focuses on questions in microeconomics, with a particular emphasis on using field experiments to address both positive and normative issues. For decades his field experimental research has focused on issues related to the inner-workings of markets, the effects of various incentives schemes on market equilibria and allocations, how behavioral economics can augment the standard economic model, on early childhood education and interventions, and most recently on the gender earnings gap in the gig economy (using evidence from rideshare drivers).

​His research includes over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and several published books, including the 2013 international best-seller, The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life (with Uri Gneezy).

Obesity is rising at high rates in China compared to almost all countries in the world, especially among children and young adults.  This lecture addresses the issue of whether and how income and schooling affect obesity using evidence from a new panel data set of adolescent twins born in rural China.  The results based on the new data show that teens who obtain more schooling than their twin siblings are less likely to become overweight, are more likely to increase time spents exercising, and are less likely to take up smoking.  The results also indicate that parents can provide effective diet and exercise advice to their children but that less educated parents are significantly less aware that a child's being overweight is an indicator of his or her adverse health.  The evidence thus highlights the importance of both incentives to maintain health associated with income and health information facilitated by schooling.

Mark R. Rosenzweig is the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale.  He is also a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University.  He is a development economist who pioneered in the use of microeconometric methods for studying the causes and consequences of economic development and the role of human capital.  Rosenzweig is Co-Editor of the Handbook of Family and Population Economics and of the newest Handbook of Development Economics.  Rosenzweig also recently served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Development Economics.  He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Yangtze River Scholar.  Rosenzweig earned B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University.

his talk will discuss the current state of trade negotiations in the light of Brexit vote, the US presidential election etc. Possible economic causes for these developments will be examined. Some necessary conditions for progress in trade liberalization will be proposed.
 

Professor Avinash K. Kixit is John J.F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University He has received the second-highest civilian honor award of India, Padma Vibhushan in 2016.