How Economists Reshaped the World | Binyamin Appelbaum | Erik Hurst | Bethany McLean

Join the Stigler Center and the College’s Law, Letters, and Society Program for a conversation with New York Times editorial board member Binyamin Appelbaum and Booth professor Erik Hurst on Appelbaum’s new book, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society, and the role of economists in the world. The conversation is moderated by author and Vanity Fair journalist Bethany McLean.

According to Binyamin Appelbaum, before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In his book, Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world.

Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead writer on business and economics for the editorial board of the New York Times. He joined the editorial board in 2019. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering the Federal Reserve and other aspects of economic policy. While he is the recipient of a Polk Award and a Loeb Award, he has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in public service. Appelbaum was born and raised in the Boston area. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and he previously worked for newspapers in Jacksonville, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., Boston, and Washington. He officially joined the Times team in 2010.

Erik Hurst is the Frank P. and Marianne R. Diassi Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and John E. Jeuck Faculty Fellow at Chicago Booth. He is also the Deputy Director of the Becker Friedman Institute. His research focuses on housing markets, labor markets and household financial behavior. His work has been covered in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Economist. In 2006, Hurst was awarded the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security. In 2012, he was awarded the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship. Hurst is a member of the Economic Fluctuations Group, Aging Group, and Public Economics Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently serving as the editor of the Journal of Political Economy and as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Bethany McLean (moderator) is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a contributor at CNBC. She was previously an editor-at-large at Fortune. Prior to joining Fortune, she was an investment analyst at Goldman Sachs. She is an investigative journalist known for her work on the Enron scandal and the 2008 financial crisis, and coauthored the bestseller, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. A documentary based on the book was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006. McLean also coauthored All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, and wrote Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the US Mortgage Giants. Her latest book is Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World.