Kenneth Elzinga
The third speaker in the Jefferson Society’s Fall 2009 Speaker Series was Professor Kenneth Elzinga. On Friday, September 18, Professor Elzinga spoke on the topic, “Some Unconventional Principles of Leadership.”
Kenneth G. Elzinga is the Robert C. Taylor Chair in Economics at the University of Virginia, and has been a member of the faculty since 1967. Mr. Elzinga has received many distinguished awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Award, the highest honor the University of Virginia accords its faculty. Each fall Mr. Elzinga teaches the largest class offered at the University of Virginia, introductory economics.
Mr. Elzinga’s major research interest is antitrust economics, especially pricing strategy and market definition. He has testified in several precedent-setting antitrust cases. He is a former Fellow in Law and Economics as the University of Chicago and a Thomas Jefferson Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University. Mr. Elzinga is the author of more than seventy academic publications.
He also is known for three mystery novels, co-authored with William Breit under the pen name Marshall Jevons, in which the protagonist employs economic analysis to solve the crime.
On the November 23rd edition of WNRN’s Sunday Morning Wake-Up Call, host Rick Moore talks with Professor David C. Smith of UVA’s McIntire School and Director of the McIntire Center for Financial Innovation. With CEOs of the “big three” US automakers asking for billions of dollars in federal aid, banks asking for help to free up credit spending, and talks of “negative inflation,” Professor Smith helps sort out the confusing news and what impact all of this may have on our economy.
Professor Bryan Caplan addressed the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society on Friday, November 7, 2008, on the subject of his new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Caplan, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a Cato Institute Adjunct Scholar, supported his often counter-intuitive theories with findings from his research.
After his presentation, Professor Caplan took questions from the audience, including:
00:44:00 Who tends to score higher on the “political IQ test”: Democrats or Republicans?
00:45:00 What can be done to correct for systematic bias in the voting population?
00:47:00 Should we limit suffrage to knowledgable voters only?
00:50:00 Although average persons may not know the answers to the technical questions on the political IQ test, they do experience economics in every day life. Does that necessarily make their opinions less valuable?
00:52:00 Is the economic feasibility of a policy the only measure of its value?
