“Nature and the Marketplace” at URI
Oct. 9 event is part of fall Honors Colloquium
KINGSTON, R.I. — October 1, 2001 — Geoffrey Heal, a distinguished professor and economist at Columbia University, will speak on “Nature and the Marketplace” as part of the University of Rhode Island’s fall honors colloquium.
Heal’s talk will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in Room 271 of URI’s Chafee Social Science Center on the Kingston Campus. He will address the question: “How can we protect the environment and still earn a living?” It is free and open to the public.
Heal is the Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility and professor of economics and finance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He has served as vice dean of the school and managed the executive MBA program. He also taught at Cambridge, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton, and held a Fulbright professorship at the University of Siena.
A past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, Heal’s major research interest is the interaction between society and its natural resource base. He is working to formalize and put into action the concept of sustainability and develop an interdisciplinary group of social and biological scientists committed to research the connection between the biological and social sciences.
Writing about his 2000 book, Nature and the Marketplace, the former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Jane Lubchenco, said, “Heal courageously tackles one of the central challenges of our day: how to make economic activities compatible with protecting the natural environment on which societies depend. His treatment is enlightened, informed, and credible; his ideas are visionary yet practical.” His 1998 book, Valuing the Future, was described as “a coherent framework for understanding the earths future from an economic perspective” and “a dynamic new blueprint for comprehending sustainability.”
Heal is a member of the Pew Oceans Commission, a director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. He was formerly an advisor to the Secretary-General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
He also studies how financial markets manage risks. He founded a consulting firm that is based in London and a firm operating in London, New York and Tokyo specializing in hardware and software systems for telecommunications and date processing in support of international securities trading.
Heal has published extensively, writing 13 books and more than 150 articles. He has served as managing editor of the Review of Economic Studies and on the editorial boards of many other journals. He earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Cambridge University.
For more information about the many other events of the URI Honors Colloquium, visit www.uri.edu/sustainability, or call the Honors Program at 874-2303. The major sponsors of the colloquium are The Providence Journal and the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities.
For Information: Todd McLeish, 401-874-7892, Jennifer Smith, 401-874-2116