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Professor Robert Frank to Lecture on Passion within Reason at W&L

Robert H. Frank, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and professor of economics at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, will lecture at Washington and Lee University on March 3 at 5 p.m. in Stackhouse Theater, Elrod Commons. The event is part of the university’s yearlong Questioning Passion series.

Frank will speak on “Passion Within Reason: Human Emotions and Social Interactions.” His talk is free and open to the public.

“Frank will talk about how introducing the role of emotions and moral intuition into the realm of economic decision-making provides a deeper and more complete understand of human behavior allowing passion to play a role in the everyday choices we make,” said Arthur H. Goldsmith, the Jackson T. Stephens Professor of Economics at W&L.

Frank was an economic columnist for The New York Times from 2005 to 2015. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, a public policy organization working for an America where all have an equal say in its democracy and an equal chance in its economy.

He is the author of 13 books, including “Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy” (forthcoming, April 2016); “The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition and the Commons Good” (2012); “Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class” (2007); and “Principles of Economics” (ed. with Ben Bernanke, 2001). The sixth edition of “Principles of Economics” and the third brief edition were published in 2016.

“The Winner-Take-All Society” (ed., 1995) received a Critic’s Choice Award, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in Business Week’s list of the 10 best books of 1995.

He is a co-recipient of the 2004 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. He received the Cornell’s Stephen Russell Distinguished teaching award in 2004, 2010 and 2012, and the Apple Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005.