Tag: Economics

  • Campus & Community

    Financial resources forum set

    In response to concerns about the economy and the recent turbulence in world financial markets, Harvard Human Resources will hold a Financial Resources Forum Nov. 3 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the ballroom of the Charles Hotel.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Asia Programs offers master’s in public policy degree

    Asia Programs of the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation recently announced (Oct. 16) the launch of its two-year master’s in public policy (M.P.P.) program at the Fulbright School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HBS summit addresses future

    The timing couldn’t have been worse, or perhaps better, for Harvard Business School’s (HBS) “Centennial Global Business Summit,” a three-day conference Oct. 12-14.

    6 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Wilson perceives social structure and culture as key causes of poverty

    In speaking frankly about the seemingly implacable problems in the inner cities, Harvard University Professor William Julius Wilson traveled a road that liberals fear to tread and that conservatives tend to take. Wilson, the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor and an award-winning author and researcher, dissected the twin influences of culture and…

    4 minutes
  • Health

    Financial risk-taking behavior is associated with higher testosterone

    Higher levels of testosterone are correlated with financial risk-taking behavior, according to a new study in which men’s testosterone levels were assessed before participation in an investment game. The findings help to shed light on the evolutionary function and biological origins of risk taking.

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Memorial services

    Houthakker memorial today The University community is invited to attend a memorial service at the Memorial Church for Henry Lee Professor of Economics Emeritus Hendrik Houthakker today (Sept. 25). A reception at Loeb House will follow the 2 p.m. service.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Faculty experts to explore financial crisis in Webcast panel

    Harvard President Drew Faust invites students, faculty, and staff to a special panel discussion Thursday, Sept. 25, on the current turmoil in the financial markets. “Understanding the Crisis in the Markets: A Panel of Harvard Experts” will begin at 4 p.m. in Sanders Theatre.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Weatherhead names new class of fellows

    The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) recently announced its 2008-09 class of fellows. Each year, the WCFIA fellows program brings senior-level international-affairs professionals to Harvard, where they conduct focused, independent research and also interact intensively with the academic community, including faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates.

    12 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    David Parkes named professor of computer science

    David C. Parkes, a leader in research at the nexus of computer science and economics, has been appointed Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in Harvard’s School of Engineering and…

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Richard Musgrave

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on April 8, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Richard Abel Musgrave, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Musgrave was the leading public finance economist of his generation.

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    CLC honors Shinagel, Haynes; Dumbarton Oaks Library announces new director of studies; Department of Commerce honors Michael E. Porter; Sohigan, Yeghiayan attend Energy Globe Awards; Raiffa named recipient of Schelling Award; Woolhandler to present at council on Bioethics

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Training a physician’s eye on policy

    Three years into his medical school career, Joe Ladapo had a revelation, but it wasn’t in a medical class, it was in economics.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Genuine debate illuminates knotty ethical questions

    Should students receive financial compensation for high test scores? Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? These questions represent just a few of the many ethical issues that Harvard professors Michael Sandel, Amartya Sen, and visiting professor Philippe van Parijs…

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Discussion pivots on worker protection in a global economy

    Ethical employment practices and safeguarding workers’ rights in a global economy were the focus of discussion April 29 at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rothschild explores economics’ human side

    Blackmail and attempted murder are not typically studied as part of economic history. However, a credit crisis among 18th century French silk and brandy merchants led to just such dramatic incidents, the accounts of which piqued the interest of Emma Rothschild, a historian of economic life, empires, and Atlantic connections.

    6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Harvard economist and adviser to presidents Houthakker dies at 83

    Harvard economist Hendrik Samuel Houthakker, 83, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers for two presidents and holder of a papal knighthood, died on April 15 at Genesis Healthcare in Lebanon, N.H.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sachs insists new technologies essential

    Jeffrey Sachs, the internationally renowned economist, returned to his alma mater Monday (April 14) to give his prescription for saving the world. Sustainable development, he said, is the “central challenge of our time.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Money spent on others can buy happiness

    New research by one Harvard scholar implies that happiness can be found by spending money on others. Michael Norton, assistant professor of business administration in the marketing unit at the Harvard Business School (HBS), conducted a series of studies with his colleagues Elizabeth Dunn and Lara Aknin at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Zoellick wants to ‘retool’ the World Bank

    World Bank President Robert Zoellick reiterated his call to retool the organization to better meet the new set of development challenges across the globe during a discussion Thursday night (April 3) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Seminar calls Iraq conflict America’s first ‘credit card war’

    The five-year-old Iraq conflict is America’s first “credit card war.” And like anyone who has run up a huge credit card bill knows, a credit card debt can turn into a crushing burden with long-term consequences. This, too, will be a legacy of the Iraq War.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Shapiro selected as 2008 Young Global Leader

    The World Economic Forum recently named Daniel L. Shapiro a 2008 Young Global Leader. The director of the Harvard International Negotiation Initiative and a lecturer on law, Shapiro joins leaders across a wide range of fields who are under 40 years of age to be chosen to pursue solutions to global-scale issues including education, government,…

    1 minute
  • Health

    Punishment doesn’t earn rewards

    Individuals who engage in costly punishment do not benefit from their behavior, according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature by researchers at Harvard University and the Stockholm School of Economics.

    3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Exploring the influence of cultural texts on Chile’s consciousness

    Economic change was a hallmark of the late 20th century, when nations such as Russia, China, and Chile turned away from state-centered economic models to adopt free market exchange. Liberalization was not a simple process, particularly in Chile — where decades of political and social upheaval had left the country crippled. Even so, by the…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Calderón cites nation’s progress

    The election that put Felipe Calderón Hinojosa into office as the president of Mexico was a real squeaker — the closest vote in the modern history of his country. It took a couple of months for the federal electoral tribunal to certify him as the winner. Even then his chief opponent wouldn’t concede. An hour…

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    John Kenneth Galbraith

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December 11, 2007, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Galbraith served under or advised every Democratic president from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.

    8 minutes
  • Health

    Transitivity, the orbitofrontal cortex, and neuroeconomics

    You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster…

    4 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Scholar uses Singer sewing machine to parse cultural, economic development

    Harvard historian Andrew D. Gordon ’74, Ph.D. ’81 specializes in modern Japan and has written or edited a handful of breakthrough books on big labor, big steel, and big management.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Closing the ‘achievement gap’

    The achievement gap in American K-12 schools is well-documented, and is characterized by racial and class differences.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Scholars ask, ‘How does gender affect negotiation?’

    To most of us, negotiation is a way of getting happily to the end of a problem. As in: Who’s going to do the dishes tonight? Let’s talk.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sovereignty vs. global responsibility

    As part of Harvard Business School’s International Week, an annual event to highlight the cultural diversity at the School, Srgjan Kerim, president of the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, delivered the keynote address at the Spangler Auditorium on Oct. 25.

    2 minutes