Robert Frank

On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, the Berry Center welcomed Robert Frank to campus for the day. A leading behaviorist economist, he teaches in the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He is a regular contributor to the "Economic View" column in The New York Times.

While on campus, Frank met with a combined group of economics and sociology students to discuss issues of economic inequality, a topic on which he has written extensively. He explained how ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ was altering the quality of school districts because of inflated real estate values in certain neighborhoods. He argued that parents are spending beyond their means for housing in order to get their children into the more affluent school districts. Students found this presentation interesting from both an economic and sociological viewpoint. Later Frank joined a Berry Center reading group in the Paul K. Scott Alumni Center in Rood House. This reading group, moderated by economics professors A'amer Farooqi and Jerry Savitsky, used Frank's book The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas as their selection this spring. Following the pattern established in Frank’s book, students came prepared with economic explanations for their own everyday enigmas, which they discussed with the author in a lively exchange.

Frank's keynote presentation "The Libertarian Welfare State: Governing with a Lighter Touch" drew a standing-room only crowd to the Ringer Recital Studio. He argued that the government is justified in intervening in the market when private behavior has the potential for creating either direct or indirect social harm. He said this somewhat expanded rationale for public intervention was compatible with his libertarian preference for limited government.

Student Perspectives

Robert Frank talked about how he tries to make economics approachable for his students, and I think that he really changed the whole way I think of economics - not graphs and tables, but concepts that apply to everyday life. – Michael Walden '11, reading group participant

Our discussion with the author provided special insight into what he was thinking when organizing the examples in his book. We got a sense of the larger economic ideas he wanted to highlight. Perhaps most helpful was his take on the examples the students in the reading group had come up with. It was interesting to have him consider the logic we employed in crafting these examples. – Nate Purdy '11, reading group participant

His public presentation given later in the evening was outstanding for me. It provided great examples of how human emotions, and not only policies and regulations, can influence the economy. I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he had to say. He was very well informed, but friendly enough that I felt I could ask questions or disagree with him — Sam Peters, '12