Prof. Dr. Andrew Oswald: It is time to question standard thinking on the economy, climate change, and human happiness?

13th Bernoulli Lecture for the Behavioral Sciences

The Bernoulli Lectures for the Behavioral Sciences honor researchers who have contributed significantly to the development of the behavioral sciences, particularly in the fields of Psychology and Economics. The Bernoulli lectures are organized yearly by the Bernoulli Network for the Behavioral Sciences, a joint initiative of the Faculty of Psychology and the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Basel, with the aim of fostering interdisciplinary dialogue in the behavioral sciences.

This lecture will cautiously disagree with four ideas that western society tends to take for granted: 
(I) Economic growth remains a desirable objective. 
(II) Increasing temperatures are leading to the rising numbers of natural disasters that we observe. 
(III) Most human beings care about climate change. 
(IV) The best way forward on climate-change would be to adopt economists' solutions on carbon pricing, etc.
The lecture will describe evidence inconsistent with these four ideas. It will then try to suggest where we go from here. Time will be left at the end of the lecture for open discussion.

Andrew Oswald is a professor of economics and behavioural science at the University of Warwick in England. He serves on the board of reviewing editors of the journal Science, is chair of the network advisory panel of the IZA Institute in Bonn in Germany, and holds an honorary senior appointment at the wellbeing research centre in Oxford. His work has spanned economics, psychology, epidemiology, public health, primatology, and statistics. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel.

Find out more about Andrew at andrewoswald.com.

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