MIDDLEBURY — Professor Gary A. Hoover of Tulane University will give a big picture view of the American economy when he is the featured speaker at Middlebury College’s David K. Smith ’42 Lecture, to be held Thursday, Oct. 2, from 4:30-5:45 p.m. at the Twilight Hall Auditorium. Hoover’s lecture, “Ladder or Lottery: Economic Promises and the Reality of Who Gets Ahead,” will be based on his forthcoming book of the same title.

Hoover Will pose a simple question: is our economy a ladder, or a lottery? Are people able to control their position on the economic spectrum by their actions? Certain scholars have argued that with the creation of our market-based economy, no matter what economic position you are born into, if you play by certain social rules and do certain things, you should see upward mobility.

Drawing on his vast economic expertise, Professor Hoover explores what the “social contract” requires of its citizens, and what is promised in return. Hoover shows how civil unrest is often directly related to broken society-level promises, exploring protests such as Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party, the Arab Spring, and Student Debt Forgiveness as case studies. He also makes predictions about where future protests can be expected if the results promised are not results delivered. 

His lecture tackles challenging issues around income inequality, health care, and the coming challenges brought by artificial intelligence. At the outset, his lecture will answer the following questions: is our social contract a ladder to higher economic standing, or simply a lottery where many will buy a ticket, but only a few will find success? And how can we best align social promises with our lived economic realities?

Hoover is the Executive Director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. He is also a professor of economics and is an affiliate professor of law.

He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998. Since then, he has published numerous scholarly research papers, book chapters, books, and reviews on topics concerning income redistribution/poverty, political economy, and ethics in the economics profession. From 2022 to 2023 he was the president the Sothern Economic Association. He is on the advisory board of the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. In addition, since 2023 he has been on the board of the National Tax Association.

Hoover is the founding and current editor of the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy. He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. He has also been a guest professor at the Universities of Hannover and Konstanz in Germany, the University of Vienna in Austria and X’ian University in China.