Yale panel to examine Wall Street excess and Main Street slump

A panel discussion examining the link between instability in American financial markets and the inequality of wealth and income among American families will take place at Yale on Tuesday Nov. 29, 4–6 p.m., in Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The panelists will include New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, NASDAQ economist Frank Hatheway, and Yale faculty members Robert Shiller, Jacob Hacker, and Casey King.

Watch “The Volatility Economy” panel on the Yale LiveStream channel 4-6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 29.

Titled “The Volatility Economy: Wall Street, Main Street, and the Middle Class,” this discussion will go beyond the slogans and headlines generated by Occupy Wall Street protests to examine the deeper financial and political sources of our current economic woes. The scholars and experts on the panel will explore how the well-documented intensification of instability of financial markets directly impacts American households — and consider what might be done to reduce the risks of Wall Street for the rest of the nation.

The event is hosted by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) and the Yale Center for Analytical Sciences.  The event is free and open to the public.

The discussion will be moderated by Nocera, the author of the bestselling “All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis” (with Bethany McLean).

The panelists and their discussion topics will be:

• Jacob S. Hacker, the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science and the new director of ISPS, Yale University — “The Middle Class At Risk”
• Frank Hatheway, chief economist, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. — “An Insider’s Perspective”
• William Casey King, executive director, Yale Center for Analytical Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, and former Wall Street bond trader — “Can Regulation Control Market Volatility?”
• Robert J. Shiller, the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, Yale University – “How to Build a Stronger Financial System”

The panel will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dhYGD6WW1Y]