At the Tavern in Grassmarket: Extra lectures, public talks, department events, college talks, posters, slides, and other student-centered intellectual sustenance.
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This page collects special events, extra lectures, OYSTER Club gatherings, posters, slides, and related materials. Events here are usually outside normal class meetings and are open to interested students unless otherwise noted.
Title: TBD
Who: Robert Staiger, Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization
Date: mid-November
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Why this one matters: The Gilbert Lecture is one of the Department of Economics’ signature traditions, created to bring first-rate economics to the practical and policy problems of the day.
Gilbert LectureInternational TradeWTOEconomic Policy
Title: After Shocks: Adaptation and Growth through Volatile Times
Speaker: Richard Hornbeck, University of Chicago
Date: Wednesday, September 16
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Morey 321
Economic HistoryEngerman LectureAdaptation
Title: Trade War: The View from Across Lake America!
Who: Joe Steinberg, University of Toronto
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Time: 6:00–7:00 PM
Location: Morey 321
Reception: 7:00–8:30 PM in Morey’s Rettner Gallery, with Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.
RSVP FOR FOOD BY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Please register for the reception so we can get a reasonable count for the food order.
International TradeCanadaTrade WarDinosaur BBQ
Host: School of Arts & Sciences
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Time: 4:00–5:00 PM
Location: Feldman Ballroom, Douglass Commons
What: Stop in during midterms to de-stress with therapy dogs and enjoy a donut. Faculty and department contacts will also be there so students can ask questions and learn about Spring 2027 course offerings.
Therapy DogsDonutsMidtermsSpring 2027
Title: AI and Privacy
Moderator: Professor David Primo
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Time: 7:30–8:30 PM
Location: Wegmans Hall, 1400
Topic: AI and privacy, including government regulation, surveillance pricing, and the flip side of data-driven markets: whether consumers can use information and AI to get better deals.
Politics and MarketsAIPrivacyRegulationPanel
Title: Pizza and Payoffs: Everything you wanted to know about the Econ major — courses, careers, and what you can actually do with an economics degree.
Who: Professor Lisa Kahn and special guest Chris Nosko
Date: Monday, November 9
Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location: TBD
More Info: Chris Nosko is the head economist for Amazon! Very short department information session and lots of time for Q&A and discussions with Nosko and our department faculty.
Title: TBD
Speaker / Guests: TBD
Date: TBD
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Notes: Possible OYSTER Club gathering, extra lecture, discussion, film night, or special event. Details will be posted here when available.
OYSTER ClubDiscussionSpecial Event
The Department of Economics Annual Gilbert Lecture. Exact title, date, time, and location will be added when finalized.
Robert Staiger is a leading scholar of international trade policy and institutions and now serves as Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization. The 2026 Gilbert Lecture will bring the Department’s long-running tradition of practical economics directly to the contemporary world trading system.
Donald W. Gilbert · Rochester economist, administrator, and the University’s first provost.
The Donald W. Gilbert Memorial Lecture is one of the great traditions of the University of Rochester Department of Economics. Gilbert was a Rochester native and East High graduate who entered the University in 1917, graduated in 1921, earned a master’s degree in economics at Rochester, completed doctoral work at Harvard, and spent nearly his entire professional life at UR.
He rose from instructor to professor and chair of Economics, became dean of graduate studies, and in 1948 became the University of Rochester’s first provost. During his leadership of graduate education, Rochester was admitted in 1941 to the Association of American Universities. Gilbert also pushed economics beyond the seminar room: his University of Rochester Management Clinics connected the University with scores of Rochester businesses and industrial organizations, while his civic work made him an important bridge between the University and the Rochester community.
After Gilbert’s death in 1957, friends, colleagues, alumni, and former students created a memorial lecture in his honor. The purpose matched his career: bring serious economics to bear on difficult practical and policy problems. The first Gilbert Lecture was delivered on April 30, 1959, by public-finance economist Richard Musgrave.
What followed was an extraordinary roster. Early lecturers included Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Kenneth Boulding, Wassily Leontief, Robert Solow, and James Tobin. Later visitors included Kenneth Arrow, Arthur Lewis, George Stigler, Franco Modigliani, Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, Thomas Schelling, James Heckman, Vernon Smith, Peter Diamond, Richard Thaler, Michael Kremer, Paul Romer, and many others.
The subjects have ranged across unemployment, inflation, economic growth, population, pollution, regulation, Social Security, technological change, development, financial crises, education, health care, inequality, international trade, and the institutions that shape economic life. The series is not simply a parade of famous economists; it represents a particularly Rochester idea of economics: take the tools of the discipline and aim them at the world outside the classroom.
One final Rochester detail: Gilbert Hall is named for the same Donald W. Gilbert. If you spend time around Harkness and the River Campus, the history of Rochester economics is hiding in plain sight.
A Department of Economics special guest lecture with Pablo Peña of the University of Chicago, moderated by U of R Economics undergraduate Isaac Miller.
Why do people marry, have kids, invest in health, or choose a career? Economics has an answer, and it is not simply “supply and demand.” It is human capital theory: the framework Nobel laureate Gary Becker built and spent his career applying to nearly every domain of human life.
Peña first encountered human capital theory as an undergraduate in Becker’s famous University of Chicago course. He later served as a TA for the course and eventually taught it himself. His new book, Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of People (University of Chicago Press, 2025), brings that classroom tradition to a broad audience through questions about parenting, aging, marriage, health, fertility, careers, and the everyday choices that shape who we become.
This past event featured a short talk, a moderated discussion with Isaac Miller, and open Q&A.
About Professor Peña: Pablo Peña is an instructional professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago whose work spans applied price theory, human capital theory, empirical economics, and experimental and quasi-experimental methods. Outside academia, he co-founded Microanalitica, served as Director of Private Sector Partnerships at the Development Innovation Lab, and headed Economic Studies at Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.
Human Capital for Humans has been named to the Manhattan Institute’s 2026 F.A. Hayek Book Prize shortlist and has drawn praise from economists including Steven Levitt, Tyler Cowen, and Nobel laureate Michael Kremer.
Human Capital Gary Becker Price Theory Family Economics Book Talk Open Q&A
Wednesday, October 15, 2025 · 5:00 PM · Morey 321
Speaker: Robert Margo
Event: Engerman Lecture
Topic: Inanimate power and the transformation of American manufacturing, 1820 to 1900.
Economic HistoryEngerman LectureManufacturing
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 · 7:30–9:00 PM · Wegmans 1400
Event: Politics and Markets Project panel discussion
Moderator: Prof. David Primo
Topic: AI, labor markets, occupational disruption, automation, and the future of work.
Politics and MarketsAILabor MarketsPanel
Monday, 10/30 · 7:30 PM · Wegmans 1400
Speaker: Professor Michael Rizzo
Topic: Climate economics, catastrophe rhetoric, adaptation, resilience, and environmental tradeoffs.
ClimateEnvironmental EconomicsPublic Lecture
Our light take on this.
The spirit is simple: show up curious, argue in good faith, read things carefully, explain yourself, listen to others, and be willing to think harder than Reddit/X/Instagram/TikTok/discourse usually allows.