Former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama administration is this year’s Veblen-Clark Lecturer!

April 23, 2025, 4-5pm, Weitz 236 – “Uncertainty and the Macroeconomy: Lessons from the Great Depression for Today” by Dr. Christina Romer

romer
Dr. Christina Romer

Dr. Romer is Professor of Graduate School and Garff B. Wilson Professor Emerita of Economics, University of California, Berkeley

In her lecture, Dr. Romer will discuss how tariffs, stock market plunges, and government layoffs are generating great uncertainty about economic policy and the economic outlook. What are the likely effects of this surge in uncertainty? The experience of the U.S, following the Great Crash of the stock market in 1929 may provide some clues. Are there reasons to expect different outcomes today?

Dr. Romer joined the Berkeley faculty in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1993. Prior to her appointment at Berkeley, she was an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1985-1988. She received her Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1985.

Professor Romer is a former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama administration, vice president of the American Economic Association, co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship recipient, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a winner of the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award, and a winner of the Council for Economic Education’s Visionary Award.


History of the Veblen-Clark Lecture Series

The Veblen-Clark series was established in 1985 to honor the memory of the two most illustrious economists ever to be associated with Carleton College.

Thorstein Veblen, born in 1857, spent much of his youth on a farm in Nerstrand, Minnesota, just 10 miles south of Northfield. Veblen graduated from Carleton with a bachelor of arts degree in 1880. He went on to earn a PhD at Yale University.

John Bates Clark, a young economist, joined Carleton’s faculty at the time of Veblen’s matriculation. Clark had been educated at Amherst College and at the University of Heidelberg. He was hired as both Professor of Political Economy and History and College Librarian. He remained at the college until 1881.

While Veblen and Clark had a mutual respect for each other’s intellect, they held dramatically divergent views regarding human behavior, social science, and economics. Each would leave Carleton to establish trails in economic theory which would be heavily followed but leading in markedly different directions.

After leaving Carleton, Clark went on to teaching positions at Smith College, Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University. He was one of the pioneers of the use of marginal analysis to understand issues of resource allocation and income distribution. Among his most important contributions are The Philosophy of Wealth (1886) and The Distribution of Wealth (1899). He is considered to be one of the true founders of modern mainstream economics. The John Bates Clark medal is the highest honor awarded by the American Economics Association.

Veblen, on the other hand, forcefully challenged the foundations of mainstream economic theory. After experiencing some difficulty in landing a teaching position, Veblen’s brilliance finally overcame a variety of quirky personality traits. He obtained teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Stanford, and the University of Missouri. His most influential work is The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), in which fundamental economic paradigms are called into question.

The Veblen-Clark Lectureship brings an outstanding scholar in economics to Carleton each year for a public lecture and meetings with students and faculty. The lectureship presumes no ideological bias, but celebrates the variety of viewpoints and paradigms demonstrated by Veblen and Clark that have historically enriched the study of economics at Carleton.

The lectureship is made possible, in part, by the Ada Harrison Fund. The fund was established to honor Professor Ada Harrison, who taught in the economics department for many years and exemplified the department’s continuing commitment to teaching excellence.

Previous Veblen-Clark Lecturers