Put these on your calendar now!  We have two excellent lecturers from Middlebury lined up for the second year of the M-squared lecture series.  In addition, Pushpa Iyer and Barry Olsen will be traveling to Middlebury to lecture and meet with colleagues there.  The M-squared lecture series is just one of many ways we will be celebrating our merger with Middlebury this year, as we continue to explore common academic ground and build communities of mutual interest on both sides of the continent.

February 17, 2011, 5:15-6:50 pm, MG100
Speaker: Professor Sarah Stroup
Lecture title: “There’s No Place Like Home: The National Roots of International NGOs”

Lecture Description: The advocacy strategies and transnational networks of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have received substantial attention from scholars and activists.  While we now have considerable information about how INGOs can shape state policies, there is much work to be done in explaining why particular INGOs choose certain strategies.  Sarah Stroup discusses how the national origin of INGOs shapes INGO advocacy and networking, with examples drawn from the United States, Britain, France, and Japan.

Bio sketch: Sarah Stroup (PhD, UC Berkeley) teaches political science and international relations at Middlebury College,.  Her current book project explores the strategies of Northern NGOs at home and abroad.  She teaches courses on humanitarianism and non-state actors and most recently is author of “National Origin and Transnational Activism” (in Power and Transnational Activism, Routledge, 2010).

April 19, 2011, 12:15-1:50 pm, MG100
Speaker: Professor Jessica Holmes
Lecture title: “The Economics of Sin: What can economists tell us about the inner workings of underground markets?”
Lecture description: Professor Holmes will explore the demand and supply interactions in the markets for crime, drugs, prostitution, pornography, human organs, etc.  She will consider whether buyers in these markets are rational and utility-maximizing and whether sellers behave like firms in legal markets. She will also talk about the role that government plays in regulating “sinful” behavior and the consequences (both intended and unintended) of these government interventions. The talk will assess lessons learned from domestic as well as international markets.

Bio sketch: Jessica Holmes (Associate Professor of Economics) has been a member of Economics Department at Middlebury College since the fall of 2001. She teaches courses in microeconomics, statistics, public finance, health economics, the economics of social issues and the economics of sin. Prior to joining the Middlebury faculty, she taught at Colgate University and worked as a litigation consultant for National Economic Research Associates, conducting economic analyses for companies facing lawsuits involving securities fraud, product liability, and intellectual property. Her research fields include health economics and philanthropy and her research has been published in journals such as Journal of Public Economics, The Economic Journal, Population Research and Policy Review, Economics of Education Review, Clinical Pediatrics, and Southern Economic Journal. She received a Ph.D. in Economics in 1998 from Yale University under the guidance of T. Paul Schultz. and an A.B. in Economics from Colgate University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) in 1993. She is an avid masters swimming competing both nationally and internationally. She is married to Stephen Holmes, a software developer, with whom she has three children, Katherine, Justin and Sarah.