From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Mon May 15 2006 - 16:38:49 EDT
----- Original Message ----- From: GDAE Announcements Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 4:05 PM Subject: Leontief Prize Announcement Tufts Institute Awards Annual Economics Prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor October Lectures to Honor the Late John Kenneth Galbraith May 14, 2006 Download the PDF announcement at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/2006AnnouncementMay06.pdf Tufts University's Global Development And Environment Institute announced today that it will award its annual economics prize to Samuel Bowles of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Juliet Schor of Boston College. The award ceremony will take place October 5, 2006 at Tufts University. In recognition of the recent passing of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the winner of one of the Institute's inaugural Leontief Prizes, this year's lectures, by Dr. Bowles and Dr. Schor, will focus on the theme, "Economics for an Imperfect World: Building on the Galbraith Legacy." "For three-quarters of a century Ken Galbraith kept open a space in which economists could make robust connections between our profession and the things that most matter in the world," said GDAE co-director Neva Goodwin. "Many of us will work hard to maintain the traditions of which he was an outstanding - often a unique - champion." The Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE), which is jointly affiliated with Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, inaugurated its economics award in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and Institute advisory board member Wassily Leontief, who had passed away the previous year. The Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought recognizes economists whose work, like that of the institute and Leontief himself, combines theoretical and empirical research that can promote a more comprehensive understanding of social and environmental processes. The inaugural prizes were awarded to John Kenneth Galbraith and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. Subsequent Leontief Prize recipients have included Paul Streeten, Herman Daly, Alice Amsden, Dani Rodrik, Nancy Folbre, Robert Frank, Richard Nelson, and Ha-Joon Chang. On this year's recipients Goodwin comments, "We are proud to recognize two individuals who address today's realities through their creative combinations of empirical and conceptual work. Sam Bowles has inspired generations of economists - including an impressive array of his own students - to expand the frontiers of research and teaching in economics. Juliet Schor's scholarly and popular writings have changed perceptions of American society, and especially the costs of its high-consumption lifestyle." The 2006 prizes honor two economists whose work has opened new paths for economic theory and policy. In awarding the Leontief Prize to Dr. Bowles, GDAE cited his groundbreaking work as an innovator in microeconomics over the last 40 years. His work on the structure of labor and capital markets and the organization of work has led to the theory of "contested exchange," demonstrating how markets naturally create persistent inequalities of wealth and power. His current research focuses on the evolution of institutions, behavior, and preferences, and on the causes and consequences of inequality. Dr. Bowles combines empirical and theoretical work in economics and many related disciplines, along with sophisticated mathematical tools, to address questions of broad social and political importance. Now nominally retired from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he divides his time between U-Mass, the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico (where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program), and the University of Siena in Italy. Dr. Juliet Schor has become well known for her work on trends in labor and leisure, consumption, the economics of families, and economic justice. Her first well-known book, The Overworked American, described the time pressures, competition, and consumerism of late 20th-century America. This was followed by The Overspent American, and most recently by Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. Her current research interests include the commercialization of childhood, and the environmental sustainability of American lifestyles. Dr. Schor directed the Women Studies Program at Harvard University and taught in the Harvard economics department before becoming a Professor of Sociology at Boston College. The Global Development and Environment Institute was founded in 1993 with the goal of promoting a better understanding of how societies can pursue their economic and community goals in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The Institute develops textbooks and course materials that incorporate a broad understanding of social, financial and environmental sustainability. The Institute also carries out policy-relevant research on globalization and sustainable development, the role of the market in environmental policy, recycling and material use, and climate change. Its six-volume book series, Frontier Issues in Economic Thought, identified and summarized nearly 500 academic articles on topics often given little attention in the field of economics. The awards ceremony and Leontief Prize lectures are scheduled for October 5, 2006. They will take place on Tufts University's Medford Campus. Read more about the Leontief Prize on the GDAE web site at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/leontief.html For further information, please contact: Minona Heaviland, minona.heaviland@tufts.edu or Josh Berkowitz, joshua.berkowitz@tufts.edu 617-627-3530
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed May 31 2006 - 00:00:03 EDT