The Annual Hicks Lecture 2025

The Oxford Department of Economics is pleased to host the Annual Hicks Lecture 2025, delivered by Professor Matthew Gentzkow (Landau Professor in Technology and the Economy at Stanford University). The event will take place at 17:30 - 18:45 on Wednesday 28th May 2025 and will be followed by a drinks reception for in-person attendees.

"Unbiased"

Where: Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building, Oxford

When: Wednesday 28th May 2025, 17:30 - 18:45

 

Register for FREE here

 

More about this lecture: Measuring and combatting bias has been a central focus of policy and research in domains including employment, courts, news, medicine, college admissions, and AI. Yet notions of a what it means for a decision to be unbiased remain contested and often contradictory. I present a unified framework to define notions of bias and lack of bias across these and other domains, consider when "unbiased" is (or often isn't) a helpful concept, relate these definitions to empirical evidence, and draw lessons for those seeking to combat harmful biases in society.

 

 

About the speaker

 

Matthew Gentzkow

Landau Professor in Technology and the Economy

Department Vice-Chair at Stanford

Calvó-Armengol International Prize (2016)

John Bates Clark Medal (2014)

Matthew Gentzkow is Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He studies applied microeconomics with a focus on media industries. He received the 2014 John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the American economist under the age of forty who has made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and  a former co-editor of American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Other awards include the 2016 Calvó-Armengol International Prize, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes for Health, and Sloan Foundation, and a Faculty Excellence Award for teaching. He studied at Harvard University where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1997, a master's degree in 2002, and a PhD in 2004.

 

 

 

About the Hicks Lecture Series

 

The Sir John Hicks Memorial Lecture has run since 1984.

 

Sir John Hicks was one of the most foremost and influential economists of the 20th Century. In 1946, Hicks returned to Nuffield College as a Research Fellow (1946–1952) and went on to become Drummond Professor of Political Economy (1952–1965) and finally as a research fellow of All Souls College (1965–1971), where he continued writing after his retirement. 

Oxford Economic Papers continues to run this lecture series in Hicks' memory, in collaboration with the Department of Economics.