9 November 2008

"Talmud and Economics"

Nobel Laureate in Economics Professor Robert Aumann, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Robert Aumann was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1930, to a well-to-do orthodox Jewish family. Fleeing Nazi persecution, he emigrated to the United States with his family in 1938, settling in New York. In the process, his parents lost everything, but nevertheless gave their two children an excellent Jewish and general education. Aumann attended Yeshiva elementary and high schools, got a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1950, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT in 1955.

He joined the mathematics department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956, and has been there ever since. In 1990, he was among the founders of the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University, an interdisciplinary research center, centered on Game Theory, with members from over a dozen different departments, including Business, Economics, Psychology, Computer Science, Law, Mathematics, Ecology, Philosophy, and others.

Aumann is the author of well over eighty research papers and six books, and has held visiting positions at Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, Louvain, Stanford, Stony Brook, and NYU. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the British Academy, and the Israel Academy of Sciences; holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Chicago, Bonn, Louvain, City University of New York, and Bar Ilan University; and has received numerous prizes, including the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2005.

25 May 2008 at 6:00 pm at JIMS' office (Yitzchak Elchanan 2)

"Russia's Current Economic Situation and its Prospects"

Dr. Yevgeny Volk, Heritage Foundation, Moscow

A native of Russia, Volk is an international security and economics expert who heads Heritage Foundation's Moscow Office. He serves as a liaison between Heritage Foundation and the Russian reformers, as their nation struggles to become a more democratic, free-market society. Volk is a former deputy director for the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies and previously was Advisor to the Committee on Defense and Security Issues for the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. Volk also has served at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations

21 May 2008 at 7:00 pm at JIMS' office (Yitzchak Elchanan 2)

"The Work Ethic and the Welfare State"

Professor Arye L. Hillman from Bar Ilan University, Israel

Arye L. Hillman is professor in the department of economics at Bar-Ilan University where he holds the William Gittes Chair. His research focuses on political economy and public policy. He is the author of Public Finance and Public Policy: Responsibilities and Limitations of Government (Cambridge University Press, 2003, 2nd printing 2006, translations in Chinese, Japanese) and The Political Economy of Protection (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1989; reprinted in 2001 by Routledge). A full list of publications can be found at http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~hillman.

Dr. Hillman has taught at Princeton and UCLA. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is an editor of the European Journal of Political Economy published by Elsevier and a a former president of the European Public Choice Society. In 1995, Dr. Hillman was awarded the Max-Planck Prize in Economics for contributions to political economy.

13 March 2008 at 6:30 pm at JIMS' office (Yitzchak Elchanan 2)

"Ethnic and Linguistic Rights"

Professor Bengt-Arne Wickstrom from the Institute of Public Economics, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

Professor Bengt-Arne Wickstrom has been Professor of Public Economics at Humboldt University in Berlin since 1992. Earlier, he held chairs at Johannes-Kepler-Universitat in Linz, Austria, and at the University of Bergen, Norway. His fields of research include welfare theory, especially economic theory of justice, public-choice theory, evolutionary economics, as well as the theory of pension systems. Some representative publications are: "Decentralization and pressure-group activities" in Optimal decisions in markets and planned economies (R. E. Quant and D. Tríska, Eds.), Boulder: Westview Press (1990), "Precedence, privilege, preferences, plus Pareto principle: Some examples on egalitarian ethics and economic efficiency" in Public Choice (1992), "Politically stable pay-as-you-go pension systems: Why the social-insurance budget is too small in a democracy" (with Johann K. Brunner) in Journal of Economics/Zeitschrift fur Nationalokonomie (1993), "Equilibrium selection in linguistic games: Kial ni (ne) parolas esperanton?" (with Werner Guth and Martin Strobel) in Understanding Strategic Interaction: Essays in honor of Reinhard Selten (Wulf Albers et al., Eds.), Berlin etc.: Springer-Verlag (1996) and "The use of scandals in the progress of society" (with Manfred J. Holler) in Homo oeconomicus (1999).

17 February 2008 at 7:15 pm at JIMS' office (Yitzchak Elchanan 2)

"The Return of Inflation and the Mandates of Central Banks"

Gabriel Stein, Director at Lombard Street Research, London

Read Globes' coverage of the lecture

The past fifteen years have been characterised by what some commentators call The Great Moderation. The salient points of the Great Moderation are low and stable inflation and low business cycle volatility. In this, it differs not only from previous decades, but also from previous low-inflation decades, which were characterised by substantial volatility on both counts (prices and output). The Great Moderation is a result of a number of coinciding factors. The most important of these are the shift to independent inflation-targeting central banks; and the downward pressure on prices of traded goods resulting from globalisation, notably the entry into the world economy of a large low-cost workforce, primarily from China and India. However, we may now be past the benign phase of globalisation and entering what for prices is a malign phase. Increased demand for resources and rising wages in the low-cost countries will push up global inflation. A key question is how central banks will react.

Gabriel Stein graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics with an MSc in 1980. In 1981 he worked for the International Relations Department of the Israeli Ministry of Finance. From 1982 to 1991 he ran his own economics and public affairs consultancy - Stein Brothers - first in Stockholm and from 1990 in London. He joined Lombard Street Research in 1991 and together with Brian Reading set up the World Service. Gabriel is a Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute in London.

25 December 2007

"The Socially Responsible Leader"

Donald Siegel, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of California at Riverside

David Waldman, Professor of Management at Arizona State

Read The Jerusalem Post coverage of the lecture

Should Corporate leaders care about anything but the maximization of profits? Or should CEOs engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? These questions were the subject of lively forum at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (JIMS). The debate at JIMS was led by Donald Siegel, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of California at Riverside, and David Waldman, Professor of Management at Arizona State University. Professors Siegel and Waldman kicked off the debate by presenting their latest research on CSR and their different definitions of what constitutes a socially responsible leader.

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