Leontief
The American Enterprise Lecture
Each year, an outstanding economist is invited to deliver the American Enterprise Lecture, funded by Marsh & McLennan. Such well-known economists as Juanita Kreps, former Secretary of Commerce; Walter Heller, former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors; and Nobel laureates Wassily Leontief, Paul Krugman, Amartya Sen, and George Akerlof have participated in the lecture series.

Marsh & McLennan, Incorporated, the leading insurance broker in the United States with 86 offices nationally and with worldwide affiliates and subsidiaries through Marsh & McLennan International, incorporated, has generously endowed this American Enterprise Lectureship at Furman University. The object of the program, according to MMI Chairman of the Board Patton Kline, is to bring to the university community speakers "expert in economics and finance who are articulate and knowledgeable about the American system of private enterprise."

In 1977 the insurance divisions of the Furman Company, established in 1888 by Alester G. Furman, merged with Marsh & McLennan. Alester G. Furman III, former chairman of the university's Board of Trustees, is now associated with the local office of Marsh & McLennan. Through his leadership, this program enables distinguished lecturers to speak to students, faculty and the Greenville community on economic matters of contemporary concem.

2008-2009 LECTURER

Karl E. Case

karlcase

"Housing Markets and the Macroeconomy:
What Were We Thinking?"

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
3:30 PM
Burgiss Theater

Karl E. Case is the Katherine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Wellesley College where he has taught for 30 years. He is also a founding partner in the real estate research firm of Fiserv Case Shiller Weiss, Inc. and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC) and of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. The S&P Case-Shiller Indices are the most widely accepted measures of home prices in the United States, and they serve as the basis for futures and options trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Professor Case received his B.A. from Miami University in 1968, spent three years on active duty in the Army, and received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1976. His research has been in the areas of real estate, housing, and public finance. He is author or co-author of five books including Principles of Economics, Economics and Tax Policy, and Property Taxation: The Need for Reform and has published numerous articles in professional journals. Principles of Economics, a basic text co-authored with Ray C. Fair, is in its ninth edition and has been adopted at more than 450 colleges and universities.

For the last twenty-five years, Professor Case's research has focused on real estate markets and prices. He has authored a number of studies that attempt to isolate the causes and consequences of boom and bust real estate cycles and their relationship to macroeconomic performance. As early as 2003, in a paper with Robert Schiller, Professor Case raised the possibility of an emerging bubble in the housing market.

 
Past Lecturers
  • Juanita Kreps
  • Deirdre N. McCloskie
  • William Freund
  • Eileen Appelbaum
  • Walter Heller
  • Victor R. Fuchs
  • Kevin M. Murphy, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal
  • Walter E. Williams
  • Alan Krueger
  • Irwin Kellner
  • Peter Temin
  • Lester Thurow
  • Ronald Ehrenberg
  • Dwight H. Perkins
  • Steven D. Levitt, 2003 John Bates Clark Medal
  • Manuel H. Johnson
  • James Poterba
  • Alice M. Rivlin
  • Edward Glaeser
  • Claudia Goldin
  • Vladimir G. Treml
  • Jagdish Bhagwati
  • Jeffrey Sachs
  • Rebecca Blank
Department of Economics | Furman University, Hipp Hall 201 | Phone: 864.294.3473 | Fax: 864.294.2990
If you have questions or comments about this page, send email to ken.peterson@furman.edu