What’s in store for Social Security? Nobel laureate to speak at Rice

A Nobel prize winning economist will explore the future of the Social Security system in an upcoming lecture at Rice University.

Peter Diamond. Submitted photo.

Peter Diamond will discuss Social Security as part of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics (RISE) Nobel Laureate Lecture Series, which will be held Oct. 30 at 5 p.m. in Shell Auditorium in McNair Hall.

Diamond, an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one of three winners of the 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for analysis of markets with search frictions. He taught at MIT from 1966 to 2011 and has written on a wide variety of topics in economics, including public finance (particularly in the area of optimal taxation), social insurance and pensions, uncertainty and search theories, macroeconomics and behavioral economics.

“Peter Diamond is truly one of the pioneers in public finance, with path-breaking work on social security, the burden of the national debt and optimal taxation — not to mention his work on labor markets with search and matching for which he won the 2010 Nobel Prize,” said George Zodrow, department chair and the Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Chair of Economics at Rice. “We are delighted to have come to Rice for our RISE Nobel Laureate lecture.”

Since the mid-1970s, Diamond has worked on social security and pension reforms in the U.S. and in many other countries, and he has authored or co-authored four books on the topic. He is a past president of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but RSVP is requested as space is limited. For more information or to RSVP, visit the event website or call 713-348-2190.

RISE Nobel Laureate Lecture Series events are made possible by a gift from Doyle Arnold ’70.