Economics Lectures
Why Does The World Have So Much Debt?
Saving Glut Theory of Debt.
Dr. Atfin Rehman Mian, Professor of Economics
Public Policy, and Finance at Princeton University ()
- Thursday, November 19, 2026, 2 p.m.
- Mitrani Hall, CU-Bloomsburg
- Attend in person or via
- Lecture is open to the public
Atif Mian is the John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics at Princeton University and director of the at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with Computer Science and his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. In 2007, Mian co-founded the , a nonprofit institute dedicated to promoting economic research, teaching, and innovation. Research at CERP is regularly published in leading economics journals, and the center currently employs more than 500 research and professional staff working on over 40 active projects.
Atif Mian’s research centers on macroeconomics, finance, and development. His research on the Great Recession, summarized in his , uncovered the aggregate-demand channels through which the buildup of household debt helped generate the global economic crisis. Mian's research brought micro-empirical data and techniques into business-cycle macroeconomics, showing how weak risk sharing between borrowers and creditors can turn financial distress into broader economic instability. His book , co-authored with Amir Sufi, received wide global acclaim for its originality and policy implications; described it as “rewriting the story of the recession.” included Mian in its “Generation Next” of economists “shaping the way we think ĢƵ the global economy,” and Nobel laureate Robert Solow described it as “a splendid book” that reminds us that the “financial system is useful only to the extent that it makes the everyday economy work better.”
Mian’s ongoing research studies the root causes of the economy’s long-run and the risks the debt supercycle poses for global stability. It develops a of debt, showing how structural imbalances and supply-side constraints create dependence on indebted demand and large fiscal deficits, distorting both monetary and fiscal policy. The work also shows how debt dependence pushes up asset valuations, deepens financial fragility, and threatens broader economic stability. Mian is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a recipient of the R.K. Cho Prize in Economics, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Zeigler College of Business.
Past Lectures
Health Care Reform: The Past, Present, and Future
Dr. Jonathan Gruber, MIT Department of Economics ()
- Tuesday, April 14, 2026, 2 p.m.
- Mitrani Hall, CU-Bloomsburg
- Attend in person or via
- Lecture is open to the public
Dr. Jonathan Gruber is the Ford Professor and Chair of Economics at MIT, where he’s taught since 1992. A nationally recognized expert in health care policy, he has shaped major reforms including Massachusetts’ health care overhaul and the Affordable Care Act.
He has held leadership roles at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the American Society of Health Economists, and is a member of several prestigious academic societies. Dr. Gruber has authored over 180 research articles and several influential books, including Public Finance and Public Policy, Health Care Reform, and Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream.
His work has earned him numerous honors, including the ASHE Inaugural Medal, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and recognition as one of the most powerful and innovative thinkers in U.S. health care.
Past Lecture: What Does Health Insurance Do?
Dr. Matthew J. Notowidigdo, University of Chicago ()
- Tuesday, October 21, 2025, 2 p.m.
- Mitrani Hall, CU-Bloomsburg
- Attend in person or via
- Lecture is open to the public
Dr. Notowidigdo's lecture will discuss how health insurance confers benefits to the previously uninsured, including improvements in health, reductions in out-of-pocket spending, and reduced medical debt. He argues that health insurance also confers benefits to health care providers, because the uninsured often pay only a small share of their medical expenses. The prevalence of this "uncompensated care" for the uninsured helps explain the limited take-up of heavily-subsidized public health insurance, which is often interpreted as evidence that public health insurance recipients value formal health insurance at substantially less than the cost to insurers of providing that coverage. The Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion has been a useful laboratory for studying all of these economic issues.
Opportunities to Mitigate Climate Change in Developing Countries
Dr. Seema Jayachandran, Professor of Economics, Princeton University
- Thursday, November 14, 2024, 2 p.m.
- Kehr Union, Multipurpose Rooms A&B, CU-Bloomsburg
- Attend in person or via
- Lecture is open to the public
Seema Jayachandran is a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Her research focuses on environmental conservation, gender equality, and other microeconomic topics in developing countries.
She serves on the board of directors of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and leads J-PAL's gender sector. She is also co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's program in Development Economics and co-editor of American Economic Review: Insights. In addition, she serves on CARE's board of directors.
Prior to joining Princeton, she was a faculty member at Northwestern University and Stanford University. She earned a PhD in economics from Harvard University, a master's degree in physics and philosophy from the University of Oxford where she was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from MIT.
Lecture Contact
For additional information or questions ĢƵ the lectures.
