Nobel laureate Paul Romer, a former assistant professor of economics at the University of Rochester, returns to campus this Thursday to discuss how “economics can offer better answers to the most important questions facing humanity.”
Romer, a recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, will present the 53rd annual Gilbert Lecture with a talk titled “What’s Preference Got to Do with It?”
George Alessandria, the chair of Rochester’s Department of Economics, is pleased to have Romer back on campus for the Gilbert Lecture.
“Paul’s first job was at Rochester, where he did pathbreaking work to figure out how firms’ decisions to invest in research and development lead to economic growth,” says Alessandria.
In naming Romer an award recipient last year, the Nobel Committee singled out his work on the economics of technological change. “Previous macroeconomic research had emphasized technological innovation as the primary driver of economic growth, but had not modeled how economic decisions and market conditions determine the creation of new technologies. Paul Romer solved this problem by demonstrating how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations.”
An assistant professor of economics at Rochester from 1982 to 1988, Romer went on to appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley, and Stanford University, before joining the faculty at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1983.
Romer’s lecture begins at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, April 25 in James S. Gleason Hall, room 318. The event is free and open to the public.
