AUSTIN, Texas—James K. Galbraith, the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Professor in Government/Business Relations at The University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, has been awarded a 15-month, $99,959 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for a book project titled “Global Inequality and Financial Disorder: The Need for a New System.”
Galbraith, who is known nationally and internationally for his work on macroeconomic policy and global inequality, was one of 13 academics named to the Carnegie Corporation’s highly competitive scholar program this year.
In his new book, Galbraith will argue that the true economic interest of the United States lies in a reconstruction of a stable, governed and regulated system for world development. He will demonstrate that the rising global inequalities in the world today cannot be sustained and that a fundamental cause of instability lies in the asymmetrical financial position of the United States in the post-Cold War period. He also will outline the major elements of a new alternative regulatory system and highlight the importance of redefining U.S. policy and political discourse on global financial matters.
Galbraith was graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1974 and was a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University the following year. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1981. He held several positions on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including executive director of the Joint Economic Committee, before joining the LBJ School faculty in 1985.
In the mid-1990s, Galbraith served for three years as chief technical adviser to the State Planning Commission of China on a United Nations Development Program project on macroeconomic reform. He is the national board chair of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, an organization concerned with conflict reduction, security and development issues. Six Nobel laureates in economics and one in peace, sit on the organization’s board. Galbraith also is a senior scholar with the Jerome Levy Economics Institute in New York and director of The University of Texas Inequality Project.
Galbraith has authored two books, “Balancing Acts: Technology, Finance and the American Future” and “Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay.” He co edited a book, “Inequality and Industrial Change: A Global View,” that features contributions coauthored with six LBJ School Ph.D. students. He has coauthored two textbooks, “The Economic Problem” and “Macroeconomics,” and has published nearly 70 academic articles and chapters in academic books.
For more information contact: Megan Scarborough, LBJ School of Public Affairs, 512-471-8954, or Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.