William M. Rodgers III - Cases for Economic Equity

Lecture Recording

Video Recording: Cases for Economic Equity. Program slides: Cases for Economic Equity slides.

NOTE: This Presentation is for informational purposes only and represents the views of the individual speaker. Nothing in the Presentation is binding on any Federal Reserve Bank or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Abstract

Professor Rodgers will present four economic cases for equity. Each offers an analytical framework for understanding the importance of economic equity. The key conclusion of these cases is that persistent inequity has adverse effects and consequences for the entire economy, not just vulnerable people and low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. Thus, everyone can gain from greater economic equity.

The cases for economic equity are the following:

• the historical case
• the resource-based case
• the deferred maintenance case
• the business case

NOTE: This Presentation is for informational purposes only and represents the views of the individual speaker. Nothing in the Presentation is binding on any Federal Reserve Bank or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Biography

William M. Rodgers III is vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Before joining the Fed, Rodgers served as professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. His areas of expertise include compensation, pay equity, diversity and inclusion, labor market and general economic trends.

Rodgers is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and served as the Academy's board chair for the last five years. Rodgers also serves as treasurer for the Institute for Women's Policy Research. He is a non-resident fellow at The Century Foundation and has served in many public capacities, including on President Obama's Department of Labor transition team, and as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 2000 to 2001. He served on the National Economic Association Board and is a past president. Rodgers also served on the U.S. Board of United Way Worldwide and currently works on the Board of Trustees of McDaniel College. He served at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta as a visiting scholar and chairs the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's expert panel to evaluate the quality of compensation data collected from U.S. employers by the EEOC.

He has published articles in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, the Review of Black Political Economy, and Family Economics and Nutrition Review. His book, The Handbook on the Economics of Discrimination, was selected by Choice, the review journal of the American Library Association, as an Outstanding Academic Book for 2006.

Rodgers has been called upon for articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Financial Times and many other publications. He has been a guest on numerous television and radio shows, including MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, CNBC, NPR's Marketplace, Weekend Edition and America Amplified.

This event is sponsored by The Department of Economics at Dartmouth, The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, SHARE (The School House Anti-Racism Experience, and The Sadie Alexander Association.

Event poster.