Prescott Elected to National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences announced in April that Minneapolis Fed senior monetary adviser Edward Prescott has been elected to membership in the Academy. A private organization “dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare,” the Academy is composed of nearly 2,100 members and 400 foreign associates. Membership is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.
In 2004, Prescott won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and in 2002, the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics. In addition to his post at the Minneapolis Fed, he currently holds the W. P. Carey Chair in Economics at Arizona State University.
“This recognition by the Academy is an enormous honor,” said Prescott. “The NAS performs a vital role in our country by providing independent scholarly advice to the government on matters of great importance, and I am deeply proud to be part of it.”
See additional information about Prescott.
Kocherlakota Presents at Toulouse
In March, Minneapolis Fed consultant Narayana Kocherlakota of the University of Minnesota gave the Sixth Toulouse Lectures in Economics at the Institut d’Economie Industrielle (IDEI) in Toulouse, France. The IDEI was founded in 1990 by Jean-Jacque Laffont; its scientific director is Jean Tirole. Previous speakers at the prestigious IDEI forum include Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin in 2004 and John Bates Clark award winner Susan Athey in 2007.
Kocherlakota’s three-day presentation on “The New Dynamic Public Finance” discussed how to design asset and estate taxes so as to minimize the adverse incentive effects of social insurance programs. “This was a great opportunity to share more widely some of the work that’s being done in an emerging theoretical area that’s of great personal interest to me,” said Kocherlakota. “And, of course, the IDEI is one of Europe’s most eminent economic research centers, so being asked to speak there was a tremendous privilege and honor.”
Technical slides from the lectures are available at www.econ.umn.edu/~nkocher/toulouse.html.
