Professor Danny Quah, Head of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE) gave a Public Lecture hosted by DCUBS entitled: Crunching Globalisation: Some numbers on Globalisation and Global Inequality. Professor Quah had been invited by the Friends of LSE in Ireland to present their annual lecture at DCUBS. He is one of the world leading economists, having trained at Harvard and taught at MIT prior to taking up his position at LSE. He is also a two- time UK champion of Tae Kwon Do. Some 90 people attended including many prominent economists from other Universities. The lecture was opened by Professor Bernard Pierce and Professor Anne Scott, Deputy President of DCU. The lecture commenced with a discussion of the relative economic performance of Ireland in the world economy. Professor Quah was fulsome in his praise for the economic achievements in Ireland while warning that gross indicators of inequality indicated a growing disparity between rich and poor. He also highlighted the contribution to the global reduction of poverty that economies such as China and to a lesser extent India are making. However, he emphasised the dangers from the absence of significant world leadership to mediate between the competing concerns of, on the one hand, those in the world now dramatically rising out of poverty and, on the other, those seeing imbalance and inequality in the midst of their already-rich economies. Several audience members pointed to the vacuum of coordinated intergovernmental action that currently exists in that domain. Using dynamic modelling, Professor Quah was able to demonstrate the movement in inequality which globalisation fuelled economic growth contributed to third and second world economies. All of those who attended agreed that that it had been a privilege to attend this lecture and praised the outstanding communication skills of Professor Quah.

The Friends of LSE in Ireland contact is Professor Patrick Flood, DCUBS who can be contacted at 7006943

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