The Family in the Changing Economy
Bishop Oscar CantúDiocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico
Pierre-André ChiapporiColumbia University
William EvansUniversity of Notre Dame
Christine Firer HinzeFordham University
Valerie RameyUniversity of California, San Diego
How does today’s economy impact the modern family? Several trends link mounting burdens on family life to economics: children are raised amid familial and fiscal instability, young people are delaying or forgoing marriage, the elderly are made increasingly vulnerable with a growing distance between generations and rising health care costs, and the families of economic refugees are often divided across national borders or go legally unrecognized. Yet families form us as persons and are integral both to society and the economy. Situated between the 2014 and 2015 Synod Of Bishops On The Family, this symposium will feature dialogue among Bishop Cantù, economists, and scholars on what insights Catholic social teaching and contemporary economics can offer into the current crisis of the family in the changing economy.
Opening Remarks
Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago
Keynote Address
Oscar Cantú, Bishop of Las Cruces, NM; Chair, USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace
Panelists
Pierre-André Chiappori, Columbia University
William Evans, University of Notre Dame
Christine Firer Hinze, Fordham University
Valerie Ramey, University of California, San Diego
This program is part of the Lumen Christi Institute’s Seventh Annual Conference in Economics and Catholic Social Thought, a continuing exchange between research economists, bishops, and scholars.
Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute for Catholic Thought. Co-sponsored by The International House Global Voices Program, & The Seng Foundation Program for Market-Based Programs and Catholic Values at the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Bishop Oscar Cantú is the bishop of the Diocese of San Jose, CA. He has served on several committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), such as the Committee on Catholic Education, the Doctrine Committee, the Sub-Committee on Hispanic Affairs, and the Committee on International Justice and Peace. He chaired the Committee on International Justice and Peace from 2015 to 2017. He holds Master’s of Divinity and Theological Studies from the University of St. Thomas in Houston as well as a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Pierre-André Chiappori is the E. Rowan and Barbara Steinschneider Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He earned his PhD in Economics from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. He has published numerous papers on household decision-making and is co-author of the forthcoming book Family Economics. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago.
William Evans is the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics, Chair of the Economics Department, Director of Research for the Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity, and co-founder of the Lab for Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame, which partners with local and national agencies to provide evidence-based poverty solutions. His research interests include labor economics, economics of education, and health economics.
Christine Firer Hinze is the director of The Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University, where she is also a member of the Theology faculty. Her research interests include economic ethics and Catholic thought in relation to labor, gender, and family, and her published works include “Women, Families, and the Legacy of Laborem Exercens: An Unfinished Agenda.”
Valerie Ramey is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, where she has served on the faculty since earning her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 1987. She has done extensive research on the effects of government spending and its relationship to economic growth, and her work has been published in The American Economic Review.
