Global growth and the “Paperback Revolution” in history are the topics for this year’s Sheffrin and Lunn lectures, respectively, being held next week and the week after. Both are free and open to the public.

• Sheffrin Lecture in Public Policy — Presented by the Institute for Social Science and the Department of Economics, this annual program brings in scholars from many social science disciplines to create dialogues on issues relevant to national public policy. The lectures are made possible in part by a gift from economics professor emeritus and former social sciences dean Steven M. Sheffrin, and his wife, Anjali.

Princeton University’s Atif Mian is this year’s speaker, on the topic “What Happened to Global Growth?” Mian is the Theodore A. Wells ’29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton, and the director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Woodrow Wilson School.

His latest book, House of Debt, builds upon new data to describe how debt precipitated the recent recession, why debt continues to threaten the global economy and what needs to be done to fix the financial system.

His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics.

Mian holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with computer science and a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Princeton, he taught at UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

The Sheffrin lecture is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25 , in MU II at the Memorial Union. Co-sponsor: the Levine Family Fund in Economics created by the Levine Family Foundation to support activities in the Department of Economics.

• Eugene Lunn Memorial Lecture — Named after a 20-year member of the history faculty who distinguished himself as a scholar in the field of modern European intellectual history. Presented by the Department of History, with funding from Michael Tennefoss, to honor the profession of teaching and create a discussion about contemporary intellectual life.

This year’s speaker is Peter Mandler, professor of modern cultural history at the University of Cambridge, and the Bailey College lecturer in history at Cambridge’s Gonville and Caius College.

He will speak on “Good Reading for the Million: The ‘Paperback Revolution’ and the Diffusion of Academic Knowledge in Mid-20th Century Britain and America.”

Mandler, president of the Royal Historical Society, writes on the political, cultural, social and intellectual history of Britain since 1800, and on the history of the social sciences in the English-speaking world.. His most recent book is Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead Won the Second World War and Lost the Cold War.

The Lunn lecture is set for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 4, in the AGR Room at the Buehler Alumni Center.

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