Prof. Perry Mehrling Joins Pardee School Faculty
The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University is pleased to welcome to its faculty Perry Mehrling, Professor of International Political Economy. Mehrling, who previously served as a Professor of Economics at Barnard College, will teach courses on the economics of money and banking, the history of money and finance, and international money.
“I am absolutely delighted to welcome Prof. Mehrling to the Pardee family,” said Pardee School Dean Adil Najam. “He not only brings eminent intellect and an outstanding research and teaching portfolio, but he very much embodies the spirit of transdisciplinary enquiry that the Pardee School is built upon. I am confident that he will help shape the future of the Pardee School.”
“As a student of global money, I am excited by the intellectual challenge of understanding our rapidly changing world (how it actually works in practice), and excited as well by the mission of the Pardee School to use our developing knowledge to change the world for the better, not least by spreading that knowledge through our students,” Mehrling said.
Mehrling earned an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. He completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard College in the general social science major called Social Studies, which was organized around the great texts of social science: Smith, Weber, Marx, Freud, Durkheim.
“I bring to this challenge and mission my own training and long experience as an economist, but also an abiding curiosity and eagerness to learn from others with different training and experience,” Mehrling said. “The challenge is large, and no one has all the answers. That is why Pardee’s interdisciplinary strategy is so important, and also so personally compelling.”
Mehrling currently serves on the Academic Council of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (New York) and the Committee on Global Thought (Columbia University), and has served as visiting professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, University of Nice, Paris X (Nanterre), and the Sloan School of Management, MIT.
“For me, financial globalization is the essential fact of our time,” Mehrling said. “My research and teaching is all focused on understanding that fact, and its consequences for human flourishing both positive and negative. Toward that end, I am currently writing a book on the rise of the global dollar system, from the end of WWI to the present, and I look forward to bringing that perspective to the classroom starting Fall 2018.”
He also the author of The New Lombard Street: How the Fed became the dealer of last resort (Princeton 2011), Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance (Wiley 2005), and The Money Interest and the Public Interest (Harvard 1997). You can view Mehrling’s recent papers and videos on his website, “One Stop Shopping For All Things ‘Money View.’”
“Perry Mehrling is a scholarly triple-threat. He is a preeminent historian of economic thought in monetary policy and finance,” said William Grimes, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. “He has had a real impact on theory and practice of central banking and shadow banking. And, in keeping with the mission of the Pardee School, he is truly interdisciplinary and policy-relevant.”