America's Hobson's Choice

Dambisa Moyo delivered the Peterson Institute's 2011 Whitman Lecture, "America's Hobson's Choice," on March 9, 2011. Moyo is the author of the recent best-seller Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa and has just published a new book entitled How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead. Her lecture focused on the policy mistakes of the West that has led it onto a path of economic decline and what crucial and radical policy actions are necessary to stem this tide.

Moyo was named by Time as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2009. Her writings appear regularly in publications such as the Financial Times, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. She is on several corporate boards, worked as an economist at Goldman Sachs for nearly a decade, and was a consultant to the World Bank. She completed her PhD in economics at Oxford University and her Masters at Harvard.

The Whitman Lecture series was created in 2001 by Robert and Marina von Neumann Whitman. Marina Whitman is professor of business administration and public policy at the University of Michigan. She formerly served as vice president and group executive for public affairs at General Motors, as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, and as distinguished public service professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh. She has been a member of the Institute's board of directors for many years. Whitman is professor emeritus of English literature at the University of Pittsburgh. Previous Whitman Lectures have been presented by Martin Wolf, Mario Monti, Noboru Hatakeyama, Assar Lindbeck, Joaquín Almunia, and Otmar Issing.