Immigration: How Leading Economists Missed the Mark
Wednesday March 27 at 5 pm in Rocky 3.
Three months ago, the number of people crossing the US Southwest border without a visa rose to 10,000 per day, an all-time high. How should government respond to this policy crisis? Prof. Clemens will review economic research that offers a better path—and call on universities to help guide the country toward a future better for everyone.Affiliated at University College, London and with the IZA Institute in Bonn, as well as at the Peterson Institute and the Center for Global Development, Clemens is now professor of economics at George Mason University. Co-sponsored by the Economics Department.
The High Price of Free Things: How Socialism Destroyed Venezuela
Wednesday April 3 at 5 pm in Rocky 3. Daniel Di Martino (Economics Ph.D., Columbia), grew up in Venezuela and experienced the full effects of the current regime's policies, including hyperinflation and widespread shortages. He has appeared frequently on national television and speaks regularly at events about his experience. Currently a Ph.D. student at Columbia and a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Di Martino is also the founder of the Dissident Project.
State and Local Fiscal Crises Today
Tuesday April 9 at 5 pm in Rocky 3. Described as “the most important thinker we have on the subject of local government,” the celebrated Yale law professor David Schleicher returns to alma mater ('00) to discuss his just-published book In a Bad State: Responding to State and Local Budget Crises (Oxford, 2023). An entertaining writer and charismatic teacher, he is also host of the hit podcast “Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast.”
John Welborn, A Short History of Short Selling
Tuesday April 16 at 7:30 pm, Rocky 3 (note the time).
What is short selling, and why does it matter? While stock market volumes have expanded greatly in the last 50 years, the internal plumbing of the market is roughly the same as in the 1970s. As a result, short selling scandals arise that frustrate retail investors and policy makers (e.g., Gamestop). Professor Welborn joins us to explain how regulations that govern short selling and trade settlement balance liquidity and accountability but sometimes ignore the interests of retail investors and issuers.
Ian Vasquez (Cato), Argentina: Populism, Corporatism, and Crisis
Tuesday April 23 at 5 pm, Rocky 3.
Once one of the richest countries in the world, Argentina long ago fell into a cycle of recurring debt crises, devaluations, and defaults. Despite its erratic politics, the corporatist system that Juan Domingo Peron set up some 80 years ago on the model of Mussolini’s Italy has been a constant in the country’s political economy. How has that system worked? How should we understand the rise of the new president Javier Milei? Will the current crisis finally put an end to Argentina’s corporatist republic? Ian Vasquez will try to make sense of Argentina’s current moment and of the country’s path from prosperity to poverty.
A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Vasquez is coauthor of the Human Freedom Index, editor of Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism, and coeditor of Perpetuating Poverty: The World Bank, the IMF and the Developing World. He has testified numerous times in the U.S. Congress on economic development issues.