PEF Summer School 2016

If you are in Ottawa or close by, and are interested in the ideas and debates that are shaping today’s economy, then we have a summer school for you.

PEF Summer School 2016: Expanding Economic Thinking

Venue: Room 1007, Faculty of Social Science Building (FSS), 120 University, University of Ottawa, Parking Map
Date: Thursday June 2, 2016
Times: 8:00am-5:15pm

Learn in a day what you may have missed from a year of regular classes about the cutting edge economic issues that everyone is talking about.

The Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) invites you to submit an application for our one-day Summer School, which will take place the day before the Canadian Economics Association annual conference at the University of Ottawa, June 3-5. The summer school aims to help nurture a new generation of economists and researchers who will explore practical and theoretical problems from an unconventional perspective. As a participant, you will have the opportunity to expand your views with stimulating discussion about:

• Heterodox Economic Theory: alternative views on economic growth
• Is Economics Changing? lessons from the financial crisis
• Ecological Economics: informing debates about a sustainable future
• Basic Income Guarantee: a policy idea whose time has come?

Meet established and aspiring progressive economists. Speakers include:

• Mario Seccareccia(Professor, University of Ottawa)
• Brenda Spotton-Visano (Professor, York University)
• Louis-Philippe Rochon (Professor, Laurentian University)
• Mathieu Dufour (Professor, Universite de Quebec en Outaouais)
• Eric Miller(Contract Faculty, York University Faculty of Environmental Studies)
• Herb Emery(Professor, University of Calgary)
• Diane Bellemare(Senator, Parliament of Canada)
• David Macdonald (Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

If you are an economics student (undergraduate or graduate), a student interested in economic questions or a practicing economist in academia, the labour movement or with an NGO, this summer school is for you.

Registration is $20, covering lunch, refreshments and one drink at the evening social. Out-of-town participants are responsible for their own travel costs; however, limited travel scholarships for one-night accommodation may be available for select participants.

Apply at http://ow.ly/4ntbsf Questions: pefsummerschool@gmail.com

Preliminary Program

8:00 – 8:30 a.m. Registration

8:30 – 8:45 a.m. Introduction to the day’s events

8:45 – 10:15 a.m. Introduction to Heterodox Economics: More to Growth than f (A, L, K)
Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa

With secular stagnation and rising inequality being hot topics in the public conversation, there is a renewed interest in economic growth and distribution. But does the conventional approach to understanding growth restrain us from exploring the complexities of how growth and distribution are related? This introductory lecture shows that there is more than one way to bake a pie and cut it too.

10:15 – 10:35 a.m. Break

10:35 – 12:05 p.m.  Basic Income Guarantee: A Policy Idea Whose Time Has Come?

Panel discussion featuring: Herb Emery (University of Calgary); Diane Bellemare (Senate of Canada); David Macdonald (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

Fundamentally, poverty is about lack of income and poverty impacts everything from hospitalization rates to food security. Perhaps sending low income families a basic income could be the answer. Then again, maybe that approach is a false promise. This panel will debate the issues.

12:05 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. Lunch

1:15 – 2:45 p.m. Ecological Economics for Sustainable Well-Being
Eric Miller (York University, Faculty of Environmental Studies)

Ecological economics integrates considerations of efficiency, equity, and biophysical scale in ways that identify paths to achieving a sustainable future. This session introduces approaches and techniques developed in this field to help illuminate and resolve pressing environment-economy tensions.

2:45 – 3:05 p.m. Break

3:05 – 4:45 p.m. Is Economics Changing? Lessons from the Financial Crisis.
Panel discussion featuring: Brenda Spotton-Visano (York); Louis-Philippe Rochon (Laurentian); Mathieu Dufour (Universite du Quebec en Outaouais)

Many observers said the 2008 financial crisis exposed the weaknesses of the dominant economic orthodoxy, further pressing the need for a new economic thinking. But eight years after the crisis, has the teaching and practice of economics really changed? This panel will weigh in on this question.

4:45 – 5:15 p.m. Group Evaluation, Feedback of Day’s Events

5:30 – 8 p.m.  Social at the Royal Oak (161 Laurier Ave E)