Steinhardt Lecture in Economics

Richard Lipsey, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Humans as Technological Animals: Causes and Consequences of Sustained Technological Change

Thursday, February 21, 7:30 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton

Free and open to the general public

We live in a world of rapid economic and social change - change that is to a great extent driven by technology. Over the last three centuries that change has raised the living standard of the average person from what we would regard as abject poverty to levels undreamed of over all of previous human history. It has transformed our lives through the invention of new, hitherto undreamed of things that are made in new, hitherto undreamed of ways. It has also broken the ties of customary behaviour where most people had little choice but to do what their forbearers had always done, giving them a wide range of choices on how and where to live their lives. The changes have also hurt some individuals. Rapid changes require rapid adjustments - adjustments that not everyone is capable of making.

Although most people distrust technology, we humans are fundamentally technological animals. Indeed, technology is as old as the first hominid creatures, taking early forms in weapons, tools, clothing, methods of preparing food and the control of fire. In the long run, technology has helped to turn us from apes into humans and then altered our behaviour from animal-like hunting and gathering to creators of civilizations of a sophistication and complexity that would have been unimaginable to our cave-dwelling ancestors. This talk inquires into some of the causes and consequences of technologically driven transformations that have occurred in the past, are occurring present, and will occur the future.

Dr. Lipsey is currently professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, B.C.) and Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and member of their large-scale, international research project on Economic Growth and Policy. He is an officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Econometric Society. He received his BA from UBC, MA from Toronto, and Ph.D. from The London School of Economics. He also holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of McMaster, Victoria, Carlton, Queen's, Toronto Guelph, Western Ontario, Essex (England) and UBC.

Dr. Lipsey has authored several textbooks in economics that are used widely in North America and the U.K. His introductory texts have been translated into fourteen foreign languages. He has published over 150 articles in learned journals and books on various aspects of theoretical and applied economics.