“Integration and Diversity”

Sanjeev Goyal, Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and holder of the 2017-2018 Ganshof van der Meersch Chair at the ULB, will give the first of a series of lectures on Networks.

This lecture is organised by the Philippe Wiener-Maurice Anspach Foundation, which promotes academic exchanges between the ULB and the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Abstract

In a liberal society, diversity in norms, values, and modes of behaviour is greatly valued. But in contemporary European politics, diversity is also increasingly seen as a major challenge.

In the domains of food, dress, language, education, occupation, and religious belief, the rewards from an action depend on what others – especially those close to us – choose. Group identity creates differing expectations on the preferred course of action.

How do individuals navigate their way through the claims of group identity and the pressures of conformism? What are the implications for social cohesion?

About Sanjeev Goyal

Sanjeev Goyal is Professor of Economics and Fellow of Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge. He pioneered and remains a leading international scholar in the study of networks.His early research in the 1990’s laid the foundations of an economic approach to the study of networks by providing a framework for the study of the effects of social structure on human behaviour and by developing a model of how the costs and benefits of linking shape the formation of networks. In subsequent work, he has explored applications of these ideas in the context of industrial organisation, economic development, international trade, finance, the diffusion of innovations, cybersecurity, and conflict.

In 2007, Princeton University Press published his book Connections: an introduction to the economics of networks. Sanjeev Goyal is Fellow of the British Academy and was the founding Director of the Cambridge-INET Institute.

 

Practical Information

This lecture is organised by the Philippe Wiener-Maurice Anspach Foundation, which promotes academic exchanges between the ULB and the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. It will take place at the Institute of European Studies of the ULB (Room Spaak, avenue F. D. Roosevelt 39, Brussels) and will be followed by a reception.

The event is free but please register via this page by April 18th.

Contact:  fwa.relations@ulb.ac.be