Mossavar-Rahmani Center names Sperling the John T. Dunlop Prize winner

The Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government (M-RCBG) at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has named Michael Sperling ’08 the winner of the 2008 John T. Dunlop Prize in Business and Government. Sperling received the prize, which is awarded to the graduating senior who writes the best thesis on a challenging public policy issue at the interface of business and government, for his thesis titled “Unintended Consequences of Government Interventions in the Domestic Ethanol Market.” It carries a $500 award.

“The business-government relationship affects daily life: from the regulation of pension and health systems to public-private partnerships in energy generation and information-technology systems,” said John Ruggie, Evron and Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs at HKS and the Weil Director of M-RCBG. “The John T. Dunlop Thesis Prize allows us to encourage a new generation of thinkers and doers to delve deeply on these issues and explore ways of maximizing public value in the complex interplay of the public and private sectors.”

An honorable mention goes to David R. Porter for his thesis “Making Trade Fair: The Negotiation and Implementation of NAFTA Chapter Twenty.”

The prize is named after John T. Dunlop, the Lamont University Professor Emeritus, a widely respected labor economist who served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1969 to 1973. An adviser to many U.S. presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dunlop was secretary of labor under Gerald Ford, serving from March 1975 to January 1976. In addition to serving as secretary of labor, Dunlop held many other government posts. Additionally, he served as the second director of the Center for Business and Government from 1987 to 1991. He passed away in 2003.

Renamed the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government in 2005, the center focuses on policy issues at the intersection of business and government.