» ESI Lecture Series

Friday lectures are open to anyone that would like to attend and will be from 3-4:30 p.m. in Wilkinson Hall, room 116, except when otherwise noted below. Thank you to the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) for previously sponsoring the lectures.

For a full listing of all events happening at the Economic Science Institute, view the Events Calendar.


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2023-2024 Lecture Guests

April 12, Gale Pooley - Superabundance

Gale Pooley headshotAbstract: Generations of people have been taught that population growth makes resources scarcer. In 2021, for example, one widely publicized report argued, “The world's rapidly growing population is consuming the planet's natural resources at an alarming rate . . . the world currently needs 1.6 Earths to satisfy the demand for natural resources . . . [a figure that] could rise to 2 planets by 2030.” But is that true? After analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities, goods, and services spanning two centuries, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. That was especially true when they looked at “time prices,” which represent the length of time that people must work to buy something. To their surprise, the authors also found that resource abundance increased faster than the population―a relationship that they call “superabundance.”On average, every additional human being created more value than he or she consumed. This relationship between population growth and abundance is deeply counterintuitive, yet it is true. Why? More people produce more ideas, which lead to more inventions. People then test those inventions in the marketplace to separate the useful from the useless. At the end of that process of discovery, people are left with innovations that overcome shortages, spur economic growth, and raise standards of living. But large populations are not enough to sustain superabundance―just think of the poverty in China and India before their respective economic reforms. To innovate, people must be allowed to think, speak, publish, associate, and disagree. They must be allowed to save, invest, trade, and profit. In a word, they must be free.

Bio: Gale L. Pooley is the co-author of the bestseller, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. Pooley has taught at Utah Tech University, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, Alfaisal University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Boise State University, and the College of Idaho. Dr. Pooley is a Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute and serves on the board of HumanProgress.org. He also serves as an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.


May 10, 2024, Roman Sheremeta - Evacuation Behavior: Lessons for and From the War in Ukraine

Roman's headshotAbstract: Evacuations from natural disasters or war zones can save thousands of lives. While there is a substantial amount of literature on evacuation behavior in the context of natural disasters, the literature on evacuations from conflict zones is scarce. In this paper, we examine the existing literature on evacuation behavior, including our own studies conducted during the ongoing war in Ukraine. Most (but not all) of the findings from the natural disaster evacuation literature seem to be applicable to evacuation from war zones.

Bio: Roman Sheremeta is a founding rector of American University Kyiv, and a professor of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University and is a recipient of many research and teaching awards, including the 2018 Smith Ascending Scholar Prize for a "budding genius" in social science, as well as multiple grants, including the National Science Foundation and the Max Planck Institute grants. Sheremeta was listed as a Top Economic Thinker of Ukrainian descent by Forbes in 2015, a top-rated young economist in the world according to the IDEAS ranking in 2018, and recognized as the Best 40 Under 40 Professors by Poets and Quants in 2019. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sheremeta has been actively involved in delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine and working on various initiatives to rebuild Ukraine, including the National Recovery Council, an advisory board to the President of Ukraine.

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Disability services will be provided upon request. If you require specific accommodations for attending a lecture, your request must be submitted no later than seven days prior to the lecture date.

Please submit requests or questions to: Cyndi Dumas at (714) 516-4513 or dumas@chapman.edu.