[OPE-L] Leontief Prize Announcement

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


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