Steven Landsburg

Steven Landsburg

Steven E. Landsburg (born 1954) is an American professor of economics at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. From 1989 to 1995, he taught at Colorado State University.

Education

Landsburg was an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, but never completed his undergraduate requirements due to his failure to take a physical education course. He was awarded a Masters degree after he enrolled in his own course when he became a professor at the school^{[citation needed]}. Landsburg received a PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1979.

He also spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Writings and work

Popular writings

Steven E. Landsburg speaking at Warwick Economics Summit 2012

Landsburg wrote a column on "everyday economics" for Slate magazine from 1996 to 2008. The subjects of the columns were diverse and often drew on current affairs. In them, Landsburg discussed the national debt, the obesity crisis, payments to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New Orleans and salary caps in the NFL. Landsburg also discussed recent research in micro-economics and its implications, as in an article on the value of mobile phones and driving, the (career) cost of motherhood, and whether or not daughters (as opposed to sons) cause divorce.

Landsburg also addressed legal issues: in a Slate column from 2003, he proposed punishing jurors when a jury's decision is later "proven" to be wrong, such as when an acquitted defendant later admits to committing the crime. If a jury's judgement is later "proven" to be right, Landsburg suggested the jurors should be financially rewarded.

Landsburg has been particularly critical of mainstream environmentalism having devoted both Slate columns and book chapters (in The Armchair Economist) to attack environmentalist principles. As a self-described "hardcore libertarian", Landsburg emphasizes the importance of individual choice. This position extends to health care, and his view that those who choose no insurance should not receive (potentially life saving) treatment. This position was asserted partly as a response to an article published by Daily Kos .

Landsburg supports free trade and opposes protectionism, and his writings in the topic have appeared in various newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Landsburg's comparison of protectionism to racism in Forbes magazine prompted a response from Pat Buchanan. On April 8, 2005, Landsburg debated protectionism and free trade with John Gibson on the Fox News Channel's The Big Story. Before the 2004 presidential election Landsburg stated that he planned to vote against John Kerry because of his belief that John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, was a "xenophobe" due to his opposition to free trade. He compared Edwards' views to David Duke's racism.

He has also reviewed popular economics books Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist for the Wall Street Journal.

Landsburg has spoken at many distinguished events and in February 2012 he spoke at Warwick Economics Summit and the Adam Smith Institute in the United Kingdom.

In March 2012, Landsburg supported some of pop radio personality Rush Limbaugh's argument's against a Georgetown University student, Sandra Fluke. Ms. Fluke testified before a congressional committee on including birth control in insurance programs. "There are really good arguments for subsidizing and bad arguments for subsidizing [birth control]," Landsburg said during an interview with 13WHAM. "However, [Fluke] didn't bother to make any. She made no argument. She simply said she wanted it subsidized." On his blog, Landsburg discussed Limbaugh's calling Fluke a slut, and said "A far better word might have been “prostitute” (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex...The right word for that is something much closer to “extortionist”." Langsburg's comments drew a rebuke from University of Rochester President Joel Seligman, who said he was "outraged that any professor would demean a student in this fashion", and a silent protest from thirty UR students who formed a line between him and his students during one of his classes.

Academic writings

Landsburg's articles in academic journals have dealt with many fields, including algebraic K-theory, module patching, quantum game theory^{[citation needed]}, philosophy of science and, moral philosophy.

Selected publications follow.

Mathematics

• K-theory and patching for categories of complexes, Duke Mathematics Journal, Vol. 62, No. 2, March 1991, pp. 359–384.
• Relative Cycles and Algebraic K-Theory, American Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 111, No. 4, August 1989, pp. 599–632.

Teaching

Landsburg teaches intermediate and advanced microeconomics at the University of Rochester. He was promoted from adjunct associate professor to professor during the 2005-2006 academic year and in 2007 he received the University's Professor of the Year in Social Sciences award.

Personal

For several years, Landsburg served on the board of directors of Hutchinson Technology, a manufacturer of suspension assemblies for disk drives.

Landsburg lives in Rochester, NY. In his spare time he reads poetry and enjoys crossword puzzles. He has one daughter, named Cayley, who was featured in his book Fair Play.

He has eastern European Jewish heritage.

Books

• Price Theory and Applications (1989)
• The Armchair Economist (1993)
• Macroeconomics (1996)
• Fair Play (1997)
• More Sex is Safer Sex, The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics (2007)
• The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics (2009)
• A Mathematical Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology (unreleased)

External links

• About Professor Landsburg via University of Rochester
• Steven Landsburg's personal webpage
• The Big Questions Blog
• Landsburg's column at Slate
• Price Theory and Applications
• City News Interview of Landsburg: Part One, Part Two
• New York Times review of More Sex Is Safer Sex