Speaker biographies
Cass R. Sunstein is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School and the Harry Kalven Visting professor of law at the University of Chicago. Mr. Sunstein is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall and was the attorney adviser in the Department of Justice. He is the author of many books, including After the Rights Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1990), Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (Simon & Schuster, 1995), and Free Markets and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 1997). His latest book is Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness (Yale University Press, 2008). He has testified before congressional committees on topics such as regulation and administrative law. Mr. Sustein has participated in constitution-making and law reform in many nations, including Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, Poland, and China.
David Weisbach is the Walter J. Blum professor of law and Kearney director of the program in law and economics at the University of Chicago. Previously, Mr. Weisbach clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the seventh circuit court of appeals and he worked as an associate in the law firm of Miller & Chevalier. In 1992, Mr. Weisbach joined the Department of Treasury, where he worked as an attorney adviser in the office of the Tax Legislative Counsel and, subsequently, as associate tax legislative counsel. Mr. Weisbach previously taught at the Georgetown Law Center and joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1998. Mr. Weisbach’s work focuses on issues of federal taxation.
Steve Newbold is a policy analyst in the National Center for Environmental Economics at Environmental Protection Agency, where he specializes in integrating ecological modeling and economic valuation for policy assessment, including cost-benefit analysis. He also has conducted research on cost-effective habitat protection, the benefits and costs of controlling small firm pollution, habitat selection and population dynamics of birds, the impacts of cooling water withdrawals on fish populations, outdoor recreation demand, and the potential for adaptive management to improve ecological sustainability.
Richard G. Newell is the Gendell associate professor of energy and environmental economics at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a university fellow of Resources for the Future, where he was previously a senior fellow. He has served as the senior economist for energy and environment on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Newell’s research focuses on the economics of markets and policies for the environment, energy, and related technologies, particularly the cost and effectiveness of alternatives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving other environmental and energy goals.
Robert W. Hahn is a senior fellow at AEI and founder and executive director of AEI’s Reg-Markets Center, which continues the AEI-Brookings Joint Center’s mission of examining cutting-edge issues in law, economics, regulation, and antitrust. Previously, he worked for the Council of Economic Advisers and served on the faculties of Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University. He frequently contributes to leading scholarly journals and general-interest periodicals, including the American Economic Review, the Yale Law Journal, Science, and the New York Times. Mr. Hahn is the author of Reviving Regulatory Reform: A Global Perspective (AEI Press, 2000) and several other books. In addition, Mr. Hahn is cofounder of the Community Preparatory School, an inner-city middle school in Providence, R.I., that provides opportunities for disadvantaged youth to achieve their full potential.
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