University of California, Davis Economics Professor to Speak at Clemens Lecture

Saint John’s University will host Dr. Peter H. Lindert, distinguished professor of economics and director of the Agricultural History Center at the University of California, Davis, for the annual Clemens lecture at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 27, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, on the SJU campus.  Lindert will present “Does Big Government Hurt Economic Growth?”  The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture series is funded by the William E. and Virginia Clemens Chair in Economics and the Liberal Arts.

Lindert’s lecture topic will address the connection between government and economic growth. After employing extensive historical data from many nations, he contests the usual presumption of most economists that the bigger the government, the weaker the economy.

Lindert received his doctorate in 1967 from Cornell University.  He has taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Essex in Colchester, England and Harvard University and continues to teach at the University of California, Davis, where he has been since 1977.

Having published many articles and more than a half dozen books, Lindert has received awards for both teaching and scholarship, and has been president of the Economic History Association.   Lindert’s latest book is titled Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century (2004) and has garnered a lot of attention from the media and economists alike.

Photo: Dr. Peter H. Lindert, distinguished professor of economics and director of the Agricultural History Center at the University of California, Davis