Nicholas Bloom, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, spoke about the future of the American economy at an event hosted by Oeconomia today during lunch in the Nichols auditorium.

In addition to being an educator, Bloom is a Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Research, and serves as a co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program.

Before working at Stanford, Bloom studied as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, concluded his masters at the University of Oxford and completed his PhD at University College London. After finishing his studies, he worked as a business tax policy advisor to the UK Treasury. He shifted to the London School of Economics in 2003 and moved to Stanford in 2005.

Bloom began his speech by discussing the recession and its effects, including an increase in unemployment. He continued explain how the stock market improved in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Bloom gave advice to students in an interview.

“Worry about inequality,” he said. “I suspect there’d be quite a lot of students here whose parents and families are in that top one percent, and it’s people within that group that [people] can try and change things. They’re also very influential. In terms of what to do, it’s push to reform schools.”

Bloom compared U.S. education and inequality to that of other countries and spoke about the effect inequality has had on society.

“Inequality is high and it’s rising,” he said during the talk. “It’s a big issue; here in a democracy it feels wrong if some people are earning vast amounts of money and others aren’t earning anything at all.”

AP Economics teacher Samuel Lepler discussed the applicability to students attending the talk.

“All of my students will be graduating from college five years from now, plus or minus,” he said. “And for them, what is coming in that five or 10 year period is exactly applicable to what they are going to encounter when their time comes to enter the labor market.”

Misha Tseitlin (11) attended the talk because of his interest in humanities and economic policy.

“It was very insightful and linked to a lot of things we see both in our class and in public policy in the status quo,” he said. “I think it was very relevant. [I gained] a greater perspective and appreciation for the kind of research that gets done at these universities and also a more professional opinion on what happens in the world at large.”

Anuva Mittal (11), another AP Economics student, went to the talk for her economics class.

“I thought it was really interesting, and it was really relevant because we’re learning about GDP, inflation and unemployment in class right now,” she said. “I was able to gain insight into the real world and how these concepts that we’re learning in class actually apply to everyday life.”

Oeconomia plans to hold its next meeting next Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. in Lepler’s room.