Past Conference Titles
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Past Conference Volumes
A new program was begun at Middlebury College in the spring of 1979 as a result of a handsomely endowed gift made possible by the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation. The purpose of the program was to provide our students and faculty with exposure to a diversity of perspectives from economists of the first rank. To this end, some of the country's leading economists from government and business, as well as from the academic community, met each April for a two-day conference at Middlebury College to present papers on a single important issue in economic policy.
These conferences and the ensuing conference volumes have placed Middlebury College on the "economic map." Thus, today, when one asks about the best undergraduate economics departments, Middlebury is inevitably included in the list. The existence of the conference has not only enabled our students to participate as co-equals with distinguished visitors talking about real-world issues, it has also helped the department recruit significantly stronger faculty than previously was possible. The conference has become an important part of the Middlebury Economics Department experience and is vital to our educational mission.
Funding for the conference since 1985 has been made possible by the generosity of the Institute of Economic and Monetary Affairs and more recently by Jones International. Robert A. Jones '59, an economics major as an undergraduate at Middlebury College, is the founder of both the Institute and Jones International. At this time, the economics department is looking for a co-sponsor for future conferences.
The series of books growing out of the annual Middlebury College Conference on Economic Issues have been published by such prestigious publishing houses as Kluwer-Nijhoff, MIT Press, Praeger, Ballinger, Cambridge University Press, and the Brookings Institution. The papers included in these volumes have appealed to teachers of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to policymakers with some background in economics. The conference volumes have achieved for members of the department a measure of professional standing.