Students, faculty, and alumni from across the university gathered in Brooks Hall on Tuesday to hear from economist Lars Peter Hansen, a 2013 recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel and this year’s Bradley Lecturer.  

Hansen, the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in the University of Chicago Departments of Economics, Statistics, and the Booth School of Business, discussed his research on the economic consequences of uncertainty and the use of uncertainty-quantification methods to address policy challenges. Hansen has made fundamental advances in understanding how economic agents cope with changing and risky environments. These advances contributed to Hansen being named a recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. 

“The challenges of policy and decision making are often fundamentally dynamic,” Hansen said in Tuesday’s lecture, which is part of the Provost's Seminar Series at UGA. 

During his presentation, Hansen said that while data-rich environments are common, many critical policy decisions occur in areas of data scarcity. In these situations, subjective, model-based approaches are essential, he said. 

"Part of what our researchers have found is that uncertainty can make you think about what's prudent in a different and fundamentally useful way. There's this tension here,” Hansen said. “There's a limited understanding of mechanisms by which policy influences economic outcomes, but there's also a demand for precise answers from the public and policymakers.” 

Ruixuan Dong, current doctoral student in the Department of Statistics and winner of the department's Best Beginning Ph.D. Student Award, presented flowers to Hansen before his lecture. Dong said she was genuinely excited to personally thank the Nobel laureate for his contributions to statistics and for speaking at the university. 

"It is incredibly rare to learn directly from a Nobel laureate whose work has had such a profound impact on economics and statistics, and I think this will be a truly inspiring experience for students at UGA," she said.

Each year, the UGA Department of Statistics and the Statistics Club host the Bradley Lecture, and Wednesday’s festivities marked the lecture’s 32^nd year installment. The event honors former faculty member Ralph A. Bradley, who founded the Department of Statistics at Florida State University. Bradley taught at Franklin College of Arts and Sciences for 10 years before retiring in 1992, and his research made many contributions to the field of statistics, including nonparametric statisticsand multivariate analysis. 

“Policymakers, businesses, and communities must regularly make consequential decisions amid uncertainty, and, as Tuesday’s lecture explored, sometimes amid ‘deep uncertainty,’” said Anna Stenport, dean of Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.  

“Global challenges such as climate change make the stakes of those decisions especially clear. This is precisely the kind of conversation we value in Franklin College: one grounded in rigorous inquiry, strengthened by connections across disciplines, and focused on questions that matter to society.” 

Ting Zhang, head of the statistics department, credited UGA's leadership for their support of the event, which included a dinner with Hansen after the formal lecture. 

"We were deeply grateful and honored to have Vice Provost Elizabeth Weeks, Dean Anna Stenport and Dean Margaret A. Amstutz join us for this special occasion and offer such warm and generous opening remarks," Zhang said. "Their presence and thoughtful words made the occasion especially meaningful to Professor Hansen, our students, faculty, and guests. We would also like to extend our sincere appreciation to Provost Ron R. Walcott and Associate Dean Adam Barb for their support."