The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) will host a discussion with renowned economist Robert Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University, to discuss his upcoming book, titled Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism.

In the book, Robert Shiller and his co-author, Nobel prize-winning economist George A. Akerlof, challenge the economic wisdom that led to the current global economic crisis and call for an active government role in economic policymaking. By recovering the term “animal spirits,” a Keynesian term to describe the despondence that led to the Great Depression, Akerlof and Shiller show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for the human psychology of confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes.

A panel discussion and Q&A will follow the lecture. Panelists include Professor Brad DeLong from the Department of Economics at U.C. Berkeley, chair of the Berkeley International and Area Studies, Political Economy major, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Jeff Madrick, Senior Fellow at SCEPA; and Teresa Ghilarducci, SCEPA Director and Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Analysis at The New School for Social Research.

Robert J. Shiller is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University. He is also professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Center for Finance at Yale School of Management. He has written about financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, macroeconomics, real estate, and statistical methods, as well as on public attitudes, opinions, and moral judgments regarding markets.

The panel will be held on Wednesday, February 18, at 6:00 p.m. in Tishman Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Please RSVP to cepa@newschool.edu  or 212-229-5901 x4911.