Condliffe Memorial Lecture
The Condliffe Memorial Lecture was instituted in 2005 to honour John Bell Condliffe, who became the first Professor of Economics at Canterbury University College in 1921. The Lecture series brings leading economists to Canterbury to provide a public lecture highlighting their recent work and its relevance to the broader business and policy community.
2011 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Martin Weitzman
Why is the economics of climate change so difficult and controversial?
Thursday, 17 November, 4:30 - 5:30pm
Law 108, Law Building, University of Canterbury
RSVP to : karen.ashby@canterbury.ac.nz
or 03 364 3882 to secure your seat
In this lecture, Professor Weitzman will focus on the special features of the economics of climate change that make this area so very difficult to analyse by conventional economic tools. He will discuss such topics as deep structural uncertainty, whose preferences are included, the possibility of catastrophic outcomes, discounting the distant future, and international public goods. Professor Weitzman will speculate on how the dilemmas of climate change might play themselves out.
Martin L. Weitzman is Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Previously he was on the faculties of MIT and Yale. He has been elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published widely in many leading economic journals and written two books. Weitzman's interests in economics are broad and he has served as consultant for several well-known organisations. His current research is focused on environmental economics, including climate change, the economics of catastrophes, cost-benefit analysis, long-run discounting, green accounting, and comparison of alternative instruments for controlling pollution.
2010 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Charles Plott "The emergence of economics as a laboratory sciences"
2009 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Hal Varian "Computer mediated transactions"
2008 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Joel Slemrod, "Tax policy in the real world"
2007 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Mark Blaug, "Congestion Charges: the solution to traffic problems?"
2006 Condliffe Memorial Lecture: Gene Grossman, "Trading Tasks: It's Not Wine for Cloth Anymore".