Economics and Catholic Social Thought: A Primer

Back to Seminars

                            May 22toMay 26
                            
2017

Applications are now closed for this seminar.

This seminar is designed as an introduction and immersion into Catholic social thought for graduate students and faculty in economics, finance, or related fields. Participants will cover foundational principles in Catholic social thought starting with the human person, dignity, freedom, subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common good, and moving toward applications of these principles to conceptual understandings and ethical considerations involving economic topics such as utility theory, firm and business ethics, wages, markets, globalization, poverty, and development. Participants will delve into social encyclicals, secondary sources, and relevant economics texts.

This seminar is cosponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic Research Economists Discussion Organization, and the Markets, Culture, and Ethics Research Center at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce.

Format: There will be twenty hours of class in addition to a full Roman experience. Each class will open with a brief lecture, and then we will turn to a seminar style discussion of the texts and issues at hand. Classroom activities will be supplemented with opportunities for daily Mass, meetings with Church leadership, and visits to famous sights in Rome.

Location: The seminar will take place in Rome, split between the University of Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway and the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce. Students will be provided with accommodations and meals, and a limited number of travel stipends are available on a need basis.

Application Information: This seminar will be open to Ph.D. students and faculty in Economics, Finance and related fields.

Applicants will be required to submit a completed online application form, including:

An updated CV.
A brief statement of research interest no longer than 750 words.
One academic writing sample.

All application materials can be submitted via the online application. Incomplete applications will not be considered. 15 students will be admitted to this seminar.

Application materials must be received by 11:59pm on MARCH 4, 2017.

Please direct any further questions to contact@credo-economists.org.

Martijn Cremers is Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on empirical issues in investments and corporate governance, and has been published in the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Stanford Law Review, and Northwestern Law Review, among others. Cremers is also a member of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's Faculty Advisory Committee.

Fr. Robert Gahl is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Vice-Director of the Markets, Culture, and Ethics Research Center at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. After studies in graduate philosophy at the University of Navarre, Spain, he finished his doctorate in Rome at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and did postdoctoral research at the University of Notre Dame. A professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross since 1991, he has published on natural law theory, sexual ethics, moral action, and the narrative structure of the moral life. His interviews and comments regarding ethics and religious affairs have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, La Presse, The National Catholic Reporter, The National Catholic Register, Relgion News Service, Cox News Service, and Catholic News Service.

Mary Hirschfeld is Assistant Professor of Economics & Theology at Villanova University. She specializes in the fields of macroeconomics and economic history. In 2013, she was inducted into the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology College of Fellows. Hirschfeld is the author of several articles on economics in the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic Education, and History of Political Economy, as well as a recent article on moral theology in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Joseph Kaboski is the David F. and Erin M. Seng Foundation Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago. Kaboski's research focuses on growth, development, and international economics. In 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Frisch Medal for the best paper in the journal Econometrica and has published scholarly articles in many other journals, including the American Economic Review and The Journal of Economic Theory. He is also a member of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's Faculty Advisory Committee.

Msgr. Martin Schlag holds the Alan W. Moss endowed chair for Catholic Social Thought of the John A. Ryan Institute in the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), where he is full professor with dual appointment in the department of Catholic Studies and the Opus College of Business. He is also director of the Program for Church Management at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Born in New York, raised in Austria, Msgr. Schlag has authored over 80 publications, among them: (together with Domènec Melé) Humanism in Economics and Business: Perspectives of the Catholic Social Tradition, The Handbook of Catholic Social Teaching: A Guide for Christians in the World Today, and The Business Francis Means: Understanding the Pope’s Message on the Economy.