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.
Nobel Prize in Economics Winner is the 2023 Veblen-Clark Lecturer!
October 26, 2023 – Sources of Artificial Intelligence by Dr. Thomas J. Sargent, William R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business, NYU and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Sargent’s talk delved into the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), looking closely at the foundational tools computer scientists use to create and enhance it. His discussion centered around a paradox: the tools that computer scientists deploy come from subject areas in which cognitive psychologists tell us that thousands of years of evolution has left us cognitively disabled. Sargent traced the origins of AI back to the contributions of figures like Galileo and Darwin, highlighting how the interplay between AI and our inherent cognitive limitations can guide our educational pursuits from high school through college and beyond.
Dr. Sargent was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics, shared with Princeton University’s Christopher Sims, for his empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy.
Prior to teaching at NYU, Sargent taught economics at the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago and Stanford University. He has been a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1987.
Professor Sargent is past president of the Econometric Society, the American Economic Association and the Society for Economic Dynamics.
Previous Veblen-Clark Lecturers
- 2023 Betsey Stevenson, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, The Ford School, University of Michigan, Women, Work, and Families: How the March Toward Gender Equality in the Workforce and at Home was Impacted by the Pandemic
- 2022 William (Sandy) Darity, Jr., From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century
- 2020 Tim Leunig, Professor, London School of Economics and Economic Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
- 2019 Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago
- 2018 Arthur Rolnick, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
- 2017 Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 2016 Martha Paas, Carleton College
- 2015 Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University
- 2013 Ben Broadbent, Bank of England, Monetary Policy Committee
- 2012 Gary Libecap, University of California at Santa Barbara
- 2011 Gavin Wright, Stanford University
- 2010 Margaret Simms, ’67, Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute
- 2009 Gregory Clark, University of California at Davis
- 2008 Thomas Schelling, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
- 2007 Benjamin M. Friedman, Harvard University
- 2005 Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University
- 2004 Charles R. Plott, California Institute of Technology
- 2003 Robert E. Lucas Jr., University of Chicago
- 2002 Robert Fogel, University of Chicago
- 2001 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University
- 2000 Anne O. Krueger, Stanford University
- 1999 Lester Thurow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 1998 Gavin Wright, Stanford University
- 1997 Douglass C. North, Washington University
- 1996 Harry Markowitz, University of California at San Diego
- 1996 Pu Shan, Chinese Society of World Economy
- 1994 Robert E. Will, Carleton College
- 1993 Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
- 1992 James Tobin, Yale University
- 1991 Robert Solow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 1990 Gary Becker, University of Chicago
- 1989 George Stigler, University of Chicago
- 1988 Michael Piore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 1986 Roger Noll, Stanford University
- 1985 Robert Clower, University of California Los Angeles