Nobel laureate in economics to lecture at Cornell

MOUNT VERNON — Nobel laureate Robert Solow, a major figure in macroeconomics and the field of economic growth, will deliver the keynote address Friday, Oct. 13, to launch Cornell College’s Center for Economics, Business, and Public Policy.

His lecture, “Low-Wage Work in High-Wage Countries,” is at 11 a.m. in King Chapel. Admission is free.

Solow is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a professor of economics since 1949. He received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1987 for his theory of growth. His Cornell address will report the early results of his research on low-wage jobs in advanced economies and discuss the implications for public policy.

Solow earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard. For a number of years he served as a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and was board chairman for three years. He is past president of the American Economics Association and the Econometric Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy and a former member of the National Science Board. He received the National Medal of Science in 2000.

His articles and books address the topics of economic growth, macroeconomics and the theory of unemployment. He is currently Foundation Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Cornell’s Center for Economics, Business, and Public Policy offers students experiential learning opportunities to complement and enrich their academic coursework in economics and business. Through an internship program, off-campus study program, visiting scholars and practitioners program, and summer study/research, students connect theory and practice, becoming better prepared for careers in business and the public sector.