Royal Economic Society Annual Public Lecture

2023 Annual Public Lecture with Prof. Wendy Carlin CBE

13 June 2023, 2-3:30pm
Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre

The Adam Smith Business School is delighted to host the Annual Public Lecture of the Royal Economic Society.

The Annual Public Lecture was established in 2001 and was held in Scotland in June 2022 for the first time. The lecture provides an opportunity for young people to discover economics through a talk from an internationally renowned economist. The lecture is primarily aimed at senior secondary school students, but all are welcome to attend.

Speaker: Professor Wendy Carlin is Professor of Economics at University College London (UCL), Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She leads an international project - the CORE project - to reform the undergraduate economics curriculum and is co-director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality and the Economy. Wendy’s research focuses on macroeconomics, institutions and economic performance, the economics of transition, and economic knowledge and education. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to economics and public finance.

Title: Capitalism, carbon, and colonies – looking back and looking forward

The ‘hockey stick’ representing the take-off of the British economy in the 18th and 19th centuries is sometimes explained by a single word: capitalism. But also essential were the carbon that fired the mills, and the colonies including the labour of enslaved people producing cotton, along with the calories (from sugar) that fed the industrial workers. The CCC (capitalism, carbon and colonies) model that propelled the hockey stick of rising living standards in the past is no longer workable. Is there an alternative? Economics today can provide some answers.

Wendy will be using Mentimeter to ask questions so students should have smart phones with them and access to the internet.

Schools Programme (10am-2pm)

To run alongside the Annual Public Lecture, we are hosting a visiting day for local schools in the Glasgow University Union. The aim of the day is to inform, inspire and enthuse young people about Economics, and more broadly about considering university as an option for the future.

Schedule for the day:

09:30 – 10:00     Arrival and registration  

10:00 – 12:00     Active Learning session with the Health Foundation

12:00 – 12:30 Lunch provided by the University  

12:30 – 13.30 Session on “What do Economists do”, with contributions from HM Treasury, the Health Foundation, current students and recent graduates of the University.

13:30 – 13:45 End of School Activity programme   

14:00 – 15.30 Annual Public Lecture from the Royal Economic Society with Professor Wendy Carlin CBE.

This event is free for all participants.

Watch our 2022 Annual Public Lecture with Professor Jagjit S. Chadha below.