PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT
The authors of the best-selling Freakonomics books will take center stage as the Belk College of Business at UNC Charlotte inaugurates a new speaker series.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner will help launch next, a series focused on presenting “tomorrow’s ideas, today” on Thursday, Nov. 4 at6:30 PM at the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte.
Tickets for the event, which includes a cocktail reception from 5:30 to6:30 PM, are $49 each for the general public. VIP tickets, which include the pre-event reception and an exclusive, private reception with the speakers after the event as well as signed copies of the Freakonomics books, are $149. Special pricing will be available for UNC Charlotte students and Belk College faculty and staff.
Tickets and additional information are available at next.
The pre-event reception will also serve as the 40th anniversary celebration for the Belk College of Business.
“It’s fitting that we launch this exciting new initiative on the same night we celebrate a milestone in the college’s history,” said Belk College Dean Joe Mazzola. “While we celebrate our distinguishedlegacy and the accomplishments of our faculty, students and alumni, we also look ahead to the trends, ideas and innovations that will inform the next generation of business leaders.”
About next
The next series will consist of two events per year, each bringing in top experts or notable figures in the world of business and leadership. The format will vary, ranging from public lectures to smaller, more intensive sessions with a “thought leader” moderating interactive group discussions.
“As next develops, we hope to create a yearlong series of programs for current students, alumni and the general public through community partnerships and executive education,” said Sasha Trosch, executive director of external relations. “We want to create opportunities for people to connect with each other, to engage in collaboration and debate, and to take inspiration from our speakers and turn it into action to better themselves and their community.”
About Freakonomics
Freakonomics is a ground-breaking collaboration between noted economist Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in the books, Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics.
Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of topics as varied as the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real-estate agents, the myths of campaign finance and the telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher.
What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work.
Originally published in the U.S. in 2005, Freakonomics has gone on to spend more than two years on the N.Y. Times best-seller list, having sold more than 3 million copies around the world, in more than 30 languages.
Four years in the making, Levitt and Dubner’s follow-up book, SuperFreakonomics, asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What’s more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it’s so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary? Fans of Freakonomics will find that the “Freak-quel” is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.
About the Speakers
Steven D. Levitt is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. In 2004, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which recognizes the most influential economist in America under the age of 40. More recently, he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 People Who Shape Our World.” Levitt received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1989, his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1994, and has taught at Chicago since 1997.
Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author and journalist who lives in New York City. In addition to Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, he is the author of Turbulent Souls (Choosing My Religion), Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, and a children’s book, The Boy With Two Belly Buttons. He has written for publications including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Time, and his journalism has been anthologized in The Best American Sportswriting, The Best American Crime Writing, and elsewhere. He has taught English at Columbia University (while receiving an M.F.A. there), played in a rock band (which started at Appalachian State University, where he was an undergrad, and was later signed to Arista Records), and, as a writer, was first published at the age of 11, in Highlights for Children.