LACPaL conference this May

The Economics Department is proud to host this year's Liberal Arts Colleges Public and Labor Economics (LACPaL) conference on campus May 8 and 9, 2026. The goal of this two-day conference is to create a community of researchers at liberal arts colleges who are working in the fields of public and labor economics (broadly defined) to come together to share their current research and make connections for future collaborations. LACPaL 2026 will bring together more than 30 economists from liberal arts colleges across the country.

 

The Hirschel Kasper Keynote Address will be given by Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, and professor of economics and public policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

 

The conference is generously funded by the Hirschel Kasper Speaker Fund in Economics, which was established by Bentzil Kasper last year in the memory of Prof. Kasper (1935-2024) and his 54 years as a beloved member of the Oberlin College Economics Department.