In September 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, causing chaos in financial markets and leading to a severe economic crisis. Larry Ball, Professor of Economics and Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, joined us for a Policy@McCombs discussion of his new book. Ball argues that the Federal Reserve could have rescued the bank in a […]
Why Swing State Voting Is Not (Usually) Effective Altruism: The Bad News about the Good News about Voting
A Policy Lunch Seminar with Jason Brennan, Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University. Recent arguments allege that the probability of casting a decisive vote in a key swing state is higher than traditionally thought. In light of these arguments, a number of philosophers and social scientists such as William MacAskill and […]
The Rise of Cultural Socialism, and What to Do About It
Eric Kaufmann argues against the seductive libertarian idea that cultural liberals can exit themainstream and create new institutions to drive out the bad. This is true only for sectors like mediawith lower barriers to entry. But where there are strong network effects, as with universities, socialmedia platforms, government agencies and even motion pictures, elected government […]
Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation
Why have housing prices increased so much, especially in the most desirable parts of the country? Regulation is the consensus diagnosis, making Deregulation the obvious cure. But is the cure worse than the disease? Join us in person at CBA 3.202 for an event with Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and New […]
The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
This fall marks the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s famous essay on the social role of corporations. The ideas of his essay have survived the test of time and are ever so relevant in today’s discussion of stakeholder capitalism. The Salem Center will host a panel discussion on the topic featuring McCombs’ former Dean Tom […]
Short Selling: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Pedro Saffi joins us for a Policy@McCombs talk. This talk with cover how short selling works and how it can be used to reveal information about future stock prices, corporate governance, and mutual funds’ ability to outperform their benchmarks. Prof. Pedro Saffi is a Professor of Financial Economics at CJBS and the Director of its Master […]
Net-zero CO₂ by 2050 – Should world governments enact net-zero-by-2050 policies?
Join us in person at RRH 1.400 Crum Auditorium. Address: 300 W Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin, TX 78705 This event will feature: John N. Doggett a Professor at the McCombs School of Business. He received his B.A. from Claremont Men’s College, his J.D. from Yale Law School and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business […]
We The Living Reading Group
We are meeting several times over the academic year to discuss Ayn Rand’s first novel “We The Living”: Meeting 1, 01/30: Part 2, Chapters 1–5 Meeting 2, 03/05: Part 2, Chapters 6–10 Meeting 3, 03/26: Part 2, Chapters 11-13 Meeting 4, 04/16: Part 2, Chapters 14–17
Student Election Group Episode 6
As our mission statement says, “The Salem Center for Policy is dedicated to helping students and business leaders better understand the costs, benefits and consequences of policy decisions.” The weeks before a presidential election are when many Americans think most about policy, and discussions of the upcoming election often throw off more heat than light, […]
Feature Selection for Causal Effect Estimation
Causal Inference Seminar with Richard Hahn. Richard Hahn is Associate Professor of Statistics at Arizona State University. Prior to that he was Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He holds a PhD in Statistics from Duke University and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Economics from Columbia University. His […]