June 2001
Economics Department Teaching Prizes 2000/01
Each year the Department awards a number of prizes to part time class teachers who obtain excellent results in the student survey of class teaching. The top prize for 2000/01 was awarded to Dimitra Petropoulou, who taught on Economic Analysis of the European Union (EC303). Prizes were also awarded to Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Fabrizio Iacone (Introduction to Econometrics, EC220), Heski Bar Isaac and Julia Shvets (Industrial Economics, EC313) and Alberto Salvo Farre (Microeconomic Principles II, EC202).
Whilst these six deserve special mention, the Department would like to thank all of it’s part-time teachers for their invaluable contribution to the 2000/01 undergraduate teaching programme.
^|
LSE Economics ranked top in The Guardian’s University Guide
The Department heads the Guardian's table of the best places to study economics in the UK.
Details of the ranking for economics and other subject areas can be accessed via the Guardian's interactive website|.
^|
May 2001
Economics Department and the Financial Markets Group Lecture: "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth"
Date: Tuesday 1 May 2001
Time: 6.00pm
Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Benjamin Friedman
Chair: Professor Charles Goodhart
Does the experience of economic growth bear positive political, social and, ultimately, moral consequences for a society? More specifically, do rising living standards foster such tendencies as openness of opportunity, or tolerance, or social mobility, or a commitment to fairness, or the strengthening of democratic political institutions? If so, under what circumstances, and via what mechanisms? If economic growth does have such positive effects - positive externalities, in the language of economists - then the commonplace view that perceives the benefits of growth exclusively in material terms, and then weighs these material benefits against negative consequences to which we often attach a moral overtone, is seriously incomplete.
Benjamin M Friedman is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. His research and writing have primarily focused on economic policy, and in particular on the role of the financial markets in shaping how monetary and fiscal policies affect overall economic activity. His best known book is Day of Reckoning: the consequences of American economic policy under Reagan and after, which received the George S Eccles Prize, awarded annually by Columbia University for excellence in writing about economics. He is currently working on a new book on the moral consequences of economic growth.
Further information from the LSE Public Events| pages.
^|
April 2001
Professor Matthew Rabin is awarded the John Bates Clark Medal
Congratulations are due to Matthew Rabin on the award of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economics Association. The medal is awarded biennially to an American economist under the age of 40 credited with making a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. Matthew is the current visiting BP Amoco Professor in the Department of Economics and a leading researcher in the new field of behavioural economics. A statement by the AEA awarding committee described him as "an outstanding and strikingly original theorist" who has gone further than anyone in demonstrating the explanatory power of a new genre of rigorous economic analysis based on psychological evidence.
Further details are given in the following press release| issued by Matthew's home institution, the University of California, Berkeley.
^|
Leverhulme Trust Prize
The Leverhulme Trust recently announced the winners of the Philip Leverhulme Prizes - a spectacular and unprecedented recognition of research achievement by young scholars which are awarded in seven areas in 2001. They represent an investment of £1.75 million in the best young academics in the UK. Each Prize is worth £50,000 and thirty five have been awarded. They recognise the world-class achievement of outstanding young research scholars who have made substantial and original contributions to fundamental knowledge.
Dr Redding received his prize for his work on international trade and economic growth. Of his work, the Leverhulme Trustees said: 'He has been prolific during his very short career. He has established himself as an extremely talented and effective applied economist in areas of intellectual challenge and great policy relevance. Another major strand of his work focuses of the role of R&D in economic growth, where his work with others emphasises the potential role of R&D in facilitating technology transfer.
Full details of the prize winners are available at the Trust|'s pages.
^|
December 2000
QAA Subject Review
.jpg)
The Quality Assurance Agency Subject Review took place 4th-7th December 2000. The Department was awarded 23 points out of 24 for our teaching programmes. This is on a marking scale where 22 - 24 is 'excellent'.
The QAA visit involved an enormous amount of preparatory documentary work, which was organised with incredible efficiency by Frank Cowell and Helen Gadsden. In the course of this, the Department pioneered a globally transparent approach in preparing the documentation, data and other background material for the visit. The "Virtual Baseroom" can be viewed at Frank Cowell's pages|.
^|
October 2000
Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures: "Understanding unemployment: News from the front"
Date: Monday 16 - Wednesday 18th October 2000
Time: 6pm
Venue: Old Theatre
Speaker: Professor Olivier Blanchard, MIT
* Monday 16th: Shocks, wages and interest rates
* Tuesday 17th: Rents, bargaining and regulation
* Wednesday 18th: Employment protection and unemployment
These lectures will assess the progress of, and focus on some of the many issues surrounding, the consensus concerning the role and interactions between shocks and institutions with regard to European unemployment.
Further information from the LSE Public Events| pages.
^|
Centre for Economic Performance Lecture
Social Choice in a Changing Economy: the Size and Role of Government
Date: Tuesday 31 October 2000
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Old Theatre
Chair: Professor Lord Layard
Speaker: Professor Adair Turner
The speaker will focus on policies required to preserve social inclusion in an economy changed by globalisation and new technology. In particular, he will consider the threat those changes pose to the "European Social Model", and reject the notion that the forces of global competitiveness imply the wholesale dismantling of the European welfare state.
Further information from the LSE Public Events| pages.
^|
News Archive
Click on the News Archive| to read the news of previous years.
^|