James C. Kautz Lecture Series
Professor Nicholas Bloom of Standford University presents the 2019 Kautz lecture in Lindner Hall.
The James C. Kautz Lecture Series welcomes internationally recognized economists for a day of engagement at the University of Cincinnati's Lindner College of Business. The series began in 1993; please see below for a list of speakers since 2001.
2022
Did the Pandemic Permanently Alter How We Work and Live?
Professor Betsey Stevenson, PhD, University of Michigan
2020/2021
No lecture due to COVID-19 pandemic.
2019
Are American Companies Badly Managed?
Professor Nicholas Bloom, PhD, Stanford University
US companies have recently been under attack. On the political left, many claim that aggressive management practices are driving rising inequality, and on the right, President Trump recently tweeted that “bad management” is hurting US companies (rather than his tariffs). But is this true? Professor Bloom overviews 20 years of results from a large Cambridge-Cornell-Harvard-LSE-McKinsey-MIT-Oxford-Stanford-World Bank research group measuring and evaluating management practices. Using data from over 1 million firms across almost 40 countries, he argues that US firms in the private sector are actually fantastically well managed. And these world-class US management practices have helped to drive US growth over the last 100 years, improved the lives of workers, and even helped to reduce carbon emissions. In short, we should all be thanking our great American managers. This lecture is available for viewing on Youtube.
2018
Our changing lives: Work, family, and policy in a time of rising gender equality
Professor Betsey Stevenson, PhD, University of Michigan
Professor Stevenson explores how economics can help us understand how the motivation for families and the behavior within families has changed over the past several decades, how our jobs and work life have changed, and the interactions between changes in the family and the workplace. Public policy has helped to facilitate those changes by reducing workplace discrimination, increasing educational opportunities for women, and changing the laws surrounding divorce. However, other public policy decisions—such as a lack of paid parental leave—have limited those changes.
2017
Inequality, Life Chances, and Public Policy: How to Slide Down the Great Gatsby Curve
Professor Miles Corak, PhD, University of Ottawa
We should care about inequality because it has the potential to shape opportunities for the next generation. Professor Corak offers a framework for thinking about this relationship and for understanding why the adult outcomes of children are more closely tied to their family background—with the poor raising the next generation of poor adults, and the rich more likely to see their children be rich in adulthood—in countries with greater inequality. Differences in families, labor markets, and public policy all play a role in understanding why the United States has relatively less social mobility than many other countries.
2016
Global Sustainable Development
Paul Polman, MBA '79, MA '79, Hon Doc '09, CEO, Unilever
Polman actively seeks cooperation with other companies to implement sustainable business strategies and drive systemic change. He has served as the chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, and a member of the B Team. Polman also sits on the board of the UN Global Compact and the Consumer Goods Forum, where he co-chairs the Sustainability Committee. Polman has been closely involved in global discussions regarding the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2016, Paul was asked by the UN Secretary-General to be a member of the SDG Advocacy Group, tasked with promoting action on the 2030 Agenda.
2015
Income and Happiness
Justin Wolfers, PhD, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan
Professor Wolfers provides an economist's perspective on happiness, bringing together data from millions of surveys conducted in dozens of years over several decades. While earlier researchers had suggested that income and happiness were not closely linked, Professor Wolfers shows that economic factors exert a powerful force on happiness—both here and around the world.
2014
Triumph of the City
Ed Glaser, PhD, The Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Glaser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves as director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He studies the economics of cities, and has written about urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992 and has been at Harvard ever since.
2013
No lecture.
2012
Clash of Generations
Lawrence Kotlikoff, William Warren Fairfield Professor, Boston University
2011
The Value of Understanding Maximization
Barry Nalebuff, PhD, Yale University; Author and Co-founder, Honest Tea
2010
Financial Crises and Business Cycles
Edward Prescott, Nobel Laureate, Carey Chair of Economics, Arizona State University
2009
Policy Consistency and Economic Growth
Finn Erling Kydland, Henley Professor Economics, University of California and Richard P. Simmons Distinguished Profesor, Carnegie Mellon University. Recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics.
2008
The Economics and Politics of Health Care Reform
Henry J. Aaron, Senior Fellow, The Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair, Brookings Institution
2007
Economics and Politics of Immigration
George J. Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy, Harvard University
and Research Associate, the National Burea of Economic Research
2006
Reflecting on Macroeconomic Conditions
Stuart Hoffman, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, PNC Financial Services Group
2005
The US Trade Deficit: Crisis or Co-dependency?
Catherine L. Mann, Senior Fellow, the Institute for International Economics
2004
The Economy and the 2004 Elections
Thomas Mann, The W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow, Governmental Studies Program, Brookings Institution
2003
Can an Effective Global Climate Treaty be Based on Sound Science, Rational Economics, and Pragmatic Politics?
Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Chairman, Environment & Natural Resources Faculty Group, John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Director, Environment Economics Program, Harvard University.
2002
Corporate disclosure after the scandal of 2002
Robert Litan, Vice President and Director of the Economics Studies Program at the Brookings Institution
2001
Bourgeois Virtue
Deirdre McCloskey, UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Illinois (Chicago)
Enriching the lives of economics students, faculty, and alumni at the University of Cincinnati.
