FH Gruen Lectures

Public lectures in honour of the late Professor Fred Gruen

Professor Fred Gruen was Head of the Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences, the Australian National University from 1972-1986, and inaugural Director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research over 1980-1986. Fred made a significant contribution to Australian economic and public policy debate. His endowment to ANU has led to the establishment of the FH Gruen Distinguished Fellowships for researchers in the fields of economic and welfare policy.
 

Next FH Gruen lecture

Professor Matthew Shapiro

Cognitive decline, limited awareness, imperfect agency, and financial wellbeing

Thursday, 15 February 2024 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM AEDT | Allan Barton Forum, Level 2, Building 26C Kingsley Street Acton, ACT 2600

Matthew will address how cognitive decline may lead older individuals to make poor financial decisions, and how the timely transfer of financial control to a reliable agent could offset poor decision making. This timely transfer, he points out, can be compromised by cognitive decline that goes unnoticed.

Expanding on his research paper, Matthew will present survey-based evidence that older individuals possessing significant wealth regard suboptimal timing of the transfer of control as a substantial risk to their financial wellbeing.

Matthew is the Lawrence R. Klein Collegiate Professor of Economics and Research Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received Bachelor and Master degrees from Yale in 1979 and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984.

Most recent FH Gruen lecture

Professor Emily Lancsar

Valuing Health and Human Life: past present and future

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM AEST I Birch Building #35 - level 1 Innovation Space 35 Science Road Acton, ACT 2601

View the recording here.

Monetary values of health and human life are central to many public policy evaluations, such as new roads to reduce the death toll, improving health by reducing air pollution, and investment in healthcare to improve health and longevity. The value of a statistical life (VSL) was developed to value mortality-risk reduction and is broadly used in such evaluations. The quality-adjusted life year (QALY) was simultaneously developed for economic evaluation within the health sector.

In this lecture, Professor Emily Lancsar will reflect on both approaches to valuing life and health, outlining a number of implications of the departure of health economics from the economics mainstream in its approach. Emily will also present a program of work on valuing life and health that addresses these implications, including distributional considerations. She will conclude with an overview of new work to reconcile the two approaches and the implications arising from the potential for broader cross-sectoral comparisons across the public policy sphere.

Emily is Head of the Department of Health Services Research and Policy at the ANU College of Health and Medicine. She is an economist with particular interests in: valuing life and health; modelling choice, preferences and behaviour; economic evaluation; and policy analysis.

Emily has received a number of prestigious grants and fellowships. She is a member of several government advisory committees, including the Medical Services Advisory Committee, and a past member of the Evaluation Sub-Committee of MSAC and the Economic Sub-Committee of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. She is an Associate Editor of Health Economics and a past Vice President of the Australian Health Economics Society.

View Emily's full bio here.

Past lectures