WHAT: Benjamin Powell, Texas Tech University's director of the Free Market Institute and author of Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy will debate the global implications of sweatshops and their impact on poor countries with Wheaton College's Professor of Economics John Miller, author of Teaching About Sweatshops and Globalization, at Metropolitan State University of Denver as part of the eighth annual Exploring Economic Freedom Series.
Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, Colorado's free-market think tank will moderate. Caldara, a veteran of Colorado politics and media, also hosts a radio talk show on 630KHOW and a current affairs television program Devil's Advocate, on Colorado Public Television.
WHY: The MSU Denver Department of Economics established the series in 2007 to educate students and the broader community by challenging stereotypes and offering diverse perspectives in support of economic freedom. By inviting distinguished scholars, MSU Denver provides the opportunity to learn about the roles that economic and political freedom play in promoting entrepreneurship, economic growth, prosperity and peace.
WHO: Benjamin Powell's other publishing contributions include editor of Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Development (Stanford University Press: 2008) and co-editor of Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis (Transaction: 2009). He has authored more than 50 scholarly articles and policy studies. His primary fields of research are economic development, Austrian economics and public choice. Powell's research findings have been reported in more than 100 popular press outlets including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
For two decades, John Miller has been a contributing editor to Dollars & Sense, a popular economics magazine based in Boston, MA. He recently co-published Economic Collapse, Economic Change: Getting to the Roots of the Crisis. Miller edits and contributes to a classroom reader entitled Real World Macro, and writes about macroeconomics and financial instability (e.g., the Great Recession and the sluggish economic recovery), tax and budget policies and globalization. Miller's column, Up Against the Wall Street Journal, concentrates on debunking economic claims made in the business press.