How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?

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Friday, November 13, 2009

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, Lower Level Conference Room, Busch Hall

"The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?"

• Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics; Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; Chair Adviser of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
• Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Professor of Economics and President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures économiques (OFCE) in Paris; Coordinator of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
• Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program;
• Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program

CES Special Event

This panel will feature Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in person and Jean-Paul Fitoussi via videoconference from Paris. They will discuss the findings of the recent report issued by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress that was headed by Sen, Fitoussi, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

In addition, Peter Hall and Michèle Lamont will be on the panel. Their Successful Societies Program is a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) funded program that aims to quantify the measures of societal success. The resulting book, entitled Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health, integrates recent research in an effort to answer the question of why some societies are more successful than others at promoting individual and collective well-being.

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For full background information, please visit the following links:

Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress: http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm

Successful Societies Program (CIFAR): http://www2.cifar.ca/research/successful-societies-program/

Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health (Cambridge University Press)
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521516600

Moderated by Éloi Laurent, Senior Economist and Scientific Advisor at OFCE (l’Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques).

Contact: Jason Beerman
Email: beerman@fas.harvard.edu