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This year's public lecture, "Evaluating the Financial Systems of Emerging Market Economies: Applied General Equilibrium Development Economics", will be held on April 29, 2008 at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Corwin Pavilion at 2:30pm. Admission is free. Seating is limited.

Dr. Robert Townsend

Robert Townsend is the Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Economics at University of Chicago. His contributions to economic theory include the revelation principle, costly state verification, optimal multiperiod contracts, decentralization with private information, money with spatially separated agents, financial structure and growth, and forecasting the forecasts of others. His contributions in econometrics include the study of risk and insurance in developing countries. He is the author of several books, among them The Medieval Village Economy. The medieval village economy in many ways reflects the economies of poor high-risk agrarian villages of the contemporary world and served as an ideal testing ground for Professor Townsend's theories. His forthcoming book from Oxford University Press entitled Financial Systems in Developing Economies: Growth Inequality and Policy Evaluation in Thailand, evaluates the financial system of Thailand, and its lessons for Asian developing economies more generally. Townsend has served on the executive board and as assistant director of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). His work on village India was awarded the Frisch Medal, by the Econometric Society in 1998. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. From 1987 to 1989 he was editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He is currently a consultant for numerous institutions, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the World Bank, and Banco de Espaņa. Townsend received his B.A. from Duke University and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.