Economist to lecture on scientists’ obstacles

     Issei Morita, Special to the Register

October 9, 2003

NEW HAVEN — Harvard economist Richard B. Freeman will speak next week at Yale University on the outlook for careers in science and engineering.

Freeman will give a series of three lectures — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — entitled Working at the Endless Frontier: The Job Market for Scientists and Engineers.

Freeman said he will focus on the plight of young scientists, some of whom are trying to form unions in a quest for higher salary and status.

"Young scientists are not rewarded well and are unhappy," Freeman said in an interview. "They seek grants but they cannot get them."

Freeman said established scientists tend to monopolize the financial and social rewards in the field.

The three-day series is open to the public. The lectures will take place at 4 p.m. each day at the Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave.

Freeman is Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, co-director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, and director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

He is also co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The event is part of the annual Arthur M. Okun lecture series, which started in the early 1980s. It is dedicated to the memory of Yale economics professor Arthur M. Okun, who was at the university in the late 1950s.

The lecture series aims to recognize economists who make practical policy recommendations that improve the quality of life, said John Kulka, a senior editor at the Yale University Press.