Inaugural Lectures
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Wendy Bracewell (SSEES)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Peter John (Political Science)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Hans Van Wees (History)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Lisa Jardine (Renaissance Studies)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Jon French (Department of Geography)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor David Wengrow (Department of Archaeology)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Elizabeth Graham (Institute of Archaeology)
- Inaugural Lecture - Dr Peter Swaab (Department of English)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Kevin MacDonald (Department of Archaeology)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Jan Eeckhout (Department of Economics)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Ian Freestone (Department of Archaeology)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Iwan Morgan (Institute of Americas)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Neil Mitchell (International Relations)
- Inaugural Lecture - Professor Maxine Molyneux (Institute of Americas)
- CANCELLED: Inaugural Lecture - Professor Morten Ravn (Economics)
Scholarships & Funding
Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies (FIGS) online
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Inaugural Lecture Series
Inaugural Lecture - Professor Iwan Morgan (Institute of Americas)
24 October 2012
30 April 2013
UCL Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, Wilkins Building UCL - 6.30pm
Professor Iwan Morgan (Institute of Americas)
Iwan Morgan is Professor of US Studies and director of the American Presidency Centre at the UCL-Institute of the Americas. He was previously Professor of US Studies at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. His research focuses on two area - the US Presidency - and US fiscal/economic policy. He has combined these two interests in publications like: Eisenhower versus the Spenders; Deficit Government: Taxation and Spending in Modern America; and The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush (awarded the American Politics Group's Richard E. Neustadt Prize for 2010).
Title: The US Deficit Habit: What are its causes and what lessons does history offer for breaking it?
The United States faces a future of fiscal unsustainability unless it can begin to get its public debt-GDP ratio under control within the next decade. This necessitates producing a new cycle of surplus budgets, but the US has only balanced its annual budget 12 times from 1930 to the present. This lecture examines why the US has a deficit habit, why it has failed to achieve prolonged fiscal responsibility despite the pledges of successive presidents and Congresses to do so, and what contemporary policymakers can learn from the past in the quest for balanced budgets.
