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James C. Kautz Lecture Series
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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)

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