Professor Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor, spoke in Nichols Auditorium about the prospects of America’s economy and possible solutions to various economic problems on Jan. 20 at 12:30 p.m. in Nichols Auditorium.

Entitled “Great Expectations or Hard Times: The Future of the American Economy,” Bloom’s lecture was organized by Oeconomia, formerly the Harker Economics Society. Professor Bloom’s presentation covered topics ranging from the media’s views of U.S. recession and China’s prospects to America’s economic behavior in relation to post-recession trends to current issues such as education, Europe and inequality.

The business and economics teachers required their students to attend the talk, wanting students to receive economics knowledge outside the classroom.

“All of my students will be graduating from college five years from now,” Samuel Lepler, upper school economics teacher and Oeconomia advisor, said. “And for them, what is coming in that five or ten year period is exactly applicable to what they are going to encounter when their time comes to enter the labor market.”

America’s education system, once among the top in the world, has dropped to fortieth on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Professor Bloom pointed out that a key problem is that compared to other professions, teachers don’t earn as much.

Europe, with its large governments and tight regulation, has become an increasingly difficult place to do business. On the other hand, countries with smaller governments and looser regulation, such as New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, are among the top places to continue corporations. In conjunction with this, Bloom also discussed past trends in recessions and improvements in the economy and how they compare to the occurrences today.

“I thought it was really interesting, and it was really relevant because we’re learning about GDP, inflation and unemployment in class right now so it was just a good real world application,” Anuva Mittal (11) said. “I didn’t know about the recessions and how they affect the economy, so it was just interesting to see how the economy has fluctuated over the past several years.”

Professor Bloom emphasized the inequality between the top one percent of the American economy and the other 99 percent. The upper class, those who make approximately half a million dollars a year, have much greater economic and health benefits than those in the lower and middle classes.

To solve the problem of inequality, Professor Bloom suggested improving education and increasing taxation to redistribute the wealth.

“Worry about inequality,” Professor Bloom said. “Students here are at the center of it, I suspect that there are quite a lot of students here whose parents and families are in the top one percent. It’s people in that group that can try and change things. You’re also influential; in the top one percent, you’re very wealthy, but you’re also very influential. In terms of what to do, push to fund and reform schools more.”

Though America has problems with inequality and education, Professor Bloom said he was still confident moving here with his family because management in American businesses is extremely efficient and are far safer than in much of the rest of the world.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on January 27, 2016.