Events
- Annual Convention
- Great Teaching Round-up
- Leading from the middle
- fall conference for faculty leaders
- Webinars
"I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision."
Events: 2010 Economics Schedule
Economics Summary
Friday, 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
"See the Invisible Hand. Understand Your World"
Speaker: Alex Tabarrok, Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics, George Mason University
Friday, 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
"The Great Recession of 2008-09"
Speaker: Brad Schiller, Professor of Economics, University of Nevada-Reno
Saturday, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m.
"How Can a Textbook Be Free? The Economics of Free and the Emergence of Free/Fremium Models"
Speaker: Eric Frank, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Flat World Knowledge
Saturday, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
"Getting the Economic News of the Day Into Your Classroom"
Speaker: Tony O'Brien, Professor of Economics, Lehigh University
Friday, March 5th, 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
"See the Invisible Hand. Understand Your World"
Speaker: Alex Tabarrok, Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics, George Mason University
Biography:
Alex Tabarrok is Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of research for The Independent Institute. Tabarrok is co-author with Tyler Cowen of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. His recent research looks at bounty hunters, judicial incentives and elections, crime control, patent reform, methods to increase the supply of human organs for transplant, and the regulation of pharmaceuticals. He is the editor of the books Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas from the Dismal Science; The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society; and Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and the Control of Crime. His papers have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, The American Law and Economics Review, Kyklos and many other journals. His popular articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other magazines and newspapers.
Friday, March 5th, 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
"The Great Recession of 2008-09"
Speaker: Brad Schiller, Professor of Economics, University of Nevada-Reno
The Great Recession of 2008-09 was a devastating experience. Political rhetoric notwithstanding, however, it never rivaled the Great Depression of the 1930’s in depth, duration, or devastation.
The federal government pulled all of its fiscal and monetary levers to end the Great Recession. The monetary stimulus began in September 2008 saved the day. Fiscal policy has been less successful, largely due to President Obama’s focus on longer-term structural issues like energy independence rather than short-term job creation. Now federal policy walks a tightrope strung between deficit restraint and continued spending stimulus. The short-run outlook is better than most people realize, but the long-run outlook may be worse than anticipated.
Biography:
Professor Schiller has over four decades of experience teaching introductory economics at the University of Nevada, American University, the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz), and the University of Maryland. Since receiving his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, Professor Schiller has not only taught economics, but has written, lectured, and consulted on a broad range of public policy issues. He has given guest lectures at more than 300 colleges ranging from Fresno, California, to Istanbul, Turkey. His studies of inequality, discrimination, tax reform, pensions, welfare, and Social Security have appeared in both professional journals and popular media. Dr. Schiller is also a frequent commentator on economic policy for television, radio, and newspapers.
Brad is also the author of three popular college texts, The Economy Today, Essentials of Economics, and The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination that have been used by over one million students around the world. He also hosts McGraw-Hill’s annual Teaching Economics conference in Reno, Nevada. When he is not teaching, writing, or advising on economics, Professor Schiller is on the tennis courts, ski slopes or crystal-blue waters of Lake Tahoe.
Saturday, March 6th, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m.
"How Can a Textbook Be Free? The Economics of Free and the Emergence of Free/Fremium' Models"
Speaker: Eric Frank, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Flat World Knowledge
With the growth of the Internet, the marginal costs of distribution in knowledge-based industries are plummeting steeply towards zero, transitioning from an economics of scarcity to an economics of abundance. As a result, we’ve seen the rise of many new, often disruptive business models based on the economics of “free.” This session will look at how sustainable business models based on free are driving growth and market change in different industries, focusing on a more in-depth look at the higher education publishing industry. What happens when the packaging of knowledge shifts from being a rival/excludable good to a non-rival/non-excludable good? What is the real-world impact of shifting economics on both current and emerging players in the market as well as on faculty, students, and authors? Participants will leave this session with both a theoretical framework of the economics of free as well specific real-world data and highly relevant examples to integrate into teaching.
Biography:
Eric is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Flat World Knowledge, a venture capital-backed new venture publishing free and openly licensed college textbooks. Flat World Knowledge has raised over $10 million in private investment capital in the past two years, and has grown from 0 to over 40,000 users in just one academic season. They are launching a classic disruptive model in the face of the $8 billion textbook publishing market.
Eric brings over 14 years of success in higher education publishing. He has held positions in sales, editorial, and marketing at Thomson (now Cengage) and Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. Prior to starting Flat World, Eric was Director of Marketing for Prentice Hall Business Publishing, a division with annual sales in the hundreds of millions. There, he managed a team of marketing managers and marketing communications staff, and supported over 160 sales representatives.
Saturday, March 6th, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
"Getting the Economic News of the Day Into Your Classroom"
Speaker: Tony O'Brien, Professor of Economics, Lehigh University
There is said to be an ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." The last few years have certainly been interesting times, both for the economy and for teachers of economics. This talk will discuss ways in which to incorporate the latest economic events into your principles classes.
Biography:
Anthony Patrick O’Brien is a professor of economics at Lehigh University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987. He has taught principles of economics for more than 15 years, in both large sections and small honors classes. He received the Lehigh University Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was formerly the director of the Diamond Center for Economic Education and was named a Dana Foundation Faculty Fellow and Lehigh Class of 1961 Professor of Economics. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University. O’Brien’s research has dealt with such issues as the evolution of the U.S. automobile industry, sources of U.S. economic competitiveness, the development of U.S. trade policy, the causes of the Great Depression, and the causes of black-white income differences. His research has been published in leading journals, including American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Industrial Relations, Journal of Economic History, and Explorations in Economic History. His research has been supported by grants from government agencies and private foundations. In addition to teaching and writing, O’Brien also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Socio-Economics.
Economics Section Chair:
Mannie Bloemen, Houston Community College-Northeast