Michael Spence '66, chair of the Commission on Growth and Development, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and Nobel Prize winner, will speak at a public discussion at the Woodrow Wilson School on Thursday, November 15, 2012, at 4:30 p.m., Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall. A reception will follow the discussion in Shultz dining room.

Launched in April 2006, the Commission on Growth and Development has brought together twenty-two leading practitioners from government, business and the policymaking arenas, mostly from the developing world, with the belief that the world's challenges – poverty, environment, and misunderstandings within and between nations, vast differences in living standards within and across countries – are best met in conditions of rising and sustained prosperity, and expanding economic opportunities.

The Commission has sought to gather the best policies and strategies that underlie rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. The Commission has produced two major publications – The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development (May 2008) – and a Special Report on Post Crisis Growth in Developing Countries (October 2009).

Spence was the recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, along with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz, for their work on the dynamics of information flows and market development.  Spence served as Phillip H. Knight Professor and dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999.  Since 1999, he has been a partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners in California.  From 1975 to 1990, he served as professor of economics and business administration at Harvard University.  Spence was awarded the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching in 1978 and the John Bates Clark Medal in 1981 for a “significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.”  Spence is a member of the American Economic Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society.

The event will be archived online for later viewing on the Woodrow Wilson School’s Web media site – http://wws.princeton.edu/webmedia.