The lectureship series was established in 1985 to honor the memory of the two most illustrious economists ever to be associated with Carleton College.

Thorstein Veblen, born in 1857, spent much of his youth on a farm in Nerstrand, Minnesota, just 10 miles south of Northfield. Veblen graduated from Carleton with a bachelor of arts degree in 1880. He went on to earn a Ph.D. at Yale University.

John Bates Clark, a young economist, joined Carleton’s faculty at the time of Veblen’s matriculation. Clark had been educated at Amherst College and at the University of Heidelberg. He was hired as both Professor of Political Economy and History and College Librarian. He remained at the college until 1881.

While Veblen and Clark had a mutual respect for each other’s intellect, they held dramatically divergent views regarding human behavior, social science, and economics. Each would leave Carleton to establish trails in economic theory which would be heavily followed but leading in markedly different directions.

After leaving Carleton, Clark went on to teaching positions at Smith College, Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University. He was one of the pioneers of the use of marginal analysis to understand issues of resource allocation and income distribution. Among his most important contributions are The Philosophy of Wealth (1886) and The Distribution of Wealth (1899). He is considered to be one of the true founders of modern mainstream economics. The John Bates Clark medal is the highest honor awarded by the American Economics Association.

Veblen, on the other hand, forcefully challenged the foundations of mainstream economic theory. After experiencing some difficulty in landing a teaching position, Veblen’s brilliance finally overcame a variety of quirky personality traits. He obtained teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Stanford, and the University of Missouri. His most influential work is The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), in which fundamental economic paradigms are called into question.

The Veblen-Clark Lectureship brings an outstanding scholar in economics to Carleton each year for a public lecture and meetings with students and faculty. The lectureship presumes no ideological bias, but celebrates the variety of viewpoints and paradigms demonstrated by Veblen and Clark that have historically enriched the study of economics at Carleton.

The lectureship is made possible, in part, by the Ada Harrison Fund. The fund was established to honor Professor Ada Harrison, who taught in the economics department for many years and exemplified the department’s continuing commitment to teaching excellence.

2008 May 8, 7:30 p.m. Great Hall

"What is Game Theory? A Practitioner's View"

Thomas Schelling (born 14 April 1921) is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (shared with Robert Aumann) for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."

Schelling received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1944. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1951.

He served with the Marshall Plan in Europe, the White House, and the Executive Office of the President from 1948 to 1953. He wrote most of his dissertation on national income behavior working at night while in Europe. He left government to join the economics faculty at Yale University, and in 1958 he was appointed Professor of Economics at Harvard. In 1969 he joined the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Schelling's most famous book, The Strategy of Conflict (1960), has pioneered the study of bargaining and strategic behavior and is considered one of the hundred books that have been most influential in the West since 1945.^{[citation needed]} In this book he introduced the concept of the focal point, now commonly called the Schelling point.

Schelling's economic theories about war were extended in Arms and Influence (1966).

In 1971, he published a widely cited article dealing with racial dynamics called "Dynamic Models of Segregation". In this paper he showed that a small preference for one's neighbors to be of the same color could lead to total segregation. He used coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and nickels in different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an "unhappy" situation. The positive feedback cycle of segregation - prejudice - in-group preference can be found in most human populations, with great variation in what are regarded as meaningful differences -- gender, age, race, ethnicity, language, sexual preference, religion, etc. Once a cycle of separation-prejudice-discrimination-separation has begun, it has a self-sustaining momentum.

Schelling has been involved in the global warming debate since chairing a commission for President Carter in 1980. He believes climate change poses a serious threat to developing nations, but that the threat to the United States has been exaggerated. Drawing on his experience with the post-war Marshall Plan, he has argued that addressing global warming is a bargaining problem: if the world is able to reduce emissions, poor countries will receive most of the benefits but rich countries will bear most of the costs.

Dr. Schelling previously taught for twenty years at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy, as well as conducted research at IIASA, in Laxenburg, Austria between 1994 and 1999.

Schelling was one of the experts who participated in the Copenhagen Consensus.

2007 April 12, 7:30 p.m. Olin 104

"The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth"

Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman argues that economic growth, far from fostering rapacious materialism, is a prerequisite for the creation of a liberal, open society. He contends that periods of robust economic growth, in which most people see their circumstances palpably improving, foster tolerance, democracy and generous public support for the disadvantaged. Economic stagnation and insecurity, by contrast, usher in distrust, retrenchment and reaction, as well as a tightfisted callousness toward the poor and a scapegoating of immigrants and minorities. Exploring two centuries of historical evidence, Friedman elucidates connections between economic conditions, social attitudes and public policy throughout the world. Professor Friedman will also be convo speaker on Friday, April 13th, 10:50 a.m. Skinner Memorial Chapel.

Previous Veblen-Clark Lecturers

2006 Benjamin M. Friedman, Harvard University
2005 Jagdish Bhagwati, leading advocate of globalization and free trade
2004 Charles R. Plott, California Institute of Technology
2003 Robert E. Lucas Jr., University of Chicago
2002 Robert Fogel, University of Chicago
2001 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Stanford University (now at Columbia Univ.)
2000 Anne O. Krueger, Stanford University
1999 Lester Thurow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1998 Gavin Wright, Stanford University
1997 Douglass C. North, Washington University
1996 Harry Markowitz, University of California San Diego
1996 Pu Shan, Chinese Society of World Economy
1994 Robert E. Will, Carleton College
1993 Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
1992 James Tobin, Yale University
1991 Robert Solow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1990 Gary Becker, University of Chicago
1989 George Stigler, University of Chicago
1988 Michael Piore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1986 Roger Nol, Stanford University
1985 Robert Clower, University of California Los Angeles