Scranton Lecture Explores the Value of Field Experiments in Economics

Oct 1, 2013
John List, Ph.D., will discuss “Life as a Laboratory: Using Field Experiments in Economics” at The University of Scranton’s Henry George Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the DeNaples Center on campus.
John List, Ph.D., will discuss “Life as a Laboratory: Using Field Experiments in Economics” at The University of Scranton’s Henry George Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the DeNaples Center on campus.

John List, Ph.D., the Homer J. Livingston Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, will discuss “Life as a Laboratory: Using Field Experiments in Economics” at The University of Scranton’s Henry George Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the McIlhenny Ballroom of the DeNaples Center on campus.

Passionate about using field experiments to explore economic questions, Dr. List believes that this unique methodology forces researchers to understand everyday phenomena. He also urges the researcher to seek to understand more distant phenomena that have the same underlying structure, rather than simply grasping the interrelationships of factors. His recent experiments have provided insights into many aspects of microeconomics, including pricing behavior, discrimination in the marketplace, charitable giving, non-market valuation and others.

Dr. List received the Yrjo Jahnsson Lecture Prize in 2012, was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and won the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association’s Kenneth Galbraith Award in 2010, among several other honors and awards. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, The Atlantic and many other prestigious publications.

Dr. List is chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., where he has taught since 2005. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass.; a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany; a university fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C.; and an extramural fellow at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo., in 1996.

The Henry George Lecture Series is organized by the Economics and Finance Department at The University of Scranton and the campus chapter of Omicron Delta Epsilon, an international honor society for economics. The series is funded by a grant from Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, which was established in 1925 to propagate the ideas of the 19th century economist and social reformer Henry George as set forth in his book “Progress and Poverty” and other works.

The Henry George Lecture Series is the preeminent public lecture series in economics in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The list of distinguished speakers at previous lectures includes eight winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics: Tom Sargent (2011), Peter Diamond (2010), Paul Krugman (2008), Joseph Stiglitz (2001), George Akerlof (2001), Amartya Sen (1998), Robert Lucas (1995) and Robert Solow (1987).

For additional information about the Henry George Lecture, contact The University of Scranton, Department of Economics and Finance at (570) 941-4048.


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