Talk to Dig Into Haiti's Economic Crisis

Edd Noell and Paul Morgan, professors of economics and business, explore Haiti’s economy and the prospects of raising the country’s standards of living in a lecture, “Haiti: The 2010 Earthquake and the Underlying Economic Tragedy,” Thursday, Oct. 7, at 5:30 p.m. in the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara St. The free, public lecture is part of Westmont Downtown: Conversations About Things That Matter, sponsored by the Westmont Foundation.

Haiti, which faces immediate economic challenges due to the January 2010 earthquake, has received assistance from relief agencies to address its short-term needs, which Noell says reflects a pattern of foreign aid received by Haiti in the past half-century. “Yet Haiti’s long-run prospects for raising living standards remain problematic,” says Noell, who has been teaching at Westmont since 1986. “Haiti remains the poorest country in the Americas. Our presentation will explore several questions related to the phenomenon New York Times columnist David Brooks calls the ‘underlying tragedy’ of Haiti’s economy.”

Paul Morgan, who has been teaching at Westmont since 1979, says he will examine the foundational causes of the poverty that’s made Haiti so vulnerable to massive earthquake damage. “I hope to lay out the obstacles to Haitian economic development,” Morgan says. “We need to find a way to avoid short-run fixes, instead addressing the fundamental economic and social problems facing the 10 million Haitian people.”

Noell earned a master’s of business administration from the University of Texas, Austin, and a doctorate in economics from Louisiana State University. He earned the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award (Social Sciences) in 1998, has published work on labor market regulation, and is currently involved in writing a book project on the history of moral reflections in economics. He has taught international economics on study programs in China, Japan, Europe and Russia.

Morgan earned a master’s degree from Northern Illinois University and a doctor of arts from Illinois State University. He was an instructor at the International Business Institute in Europe for 10 summers between 1980 and 1995, instructor for the Westmont in Asia program in the summer of 1998 and 1999, and directed the summer course of economic development in Honduras in 1991.