In Conversation: Markets, Mobility, and the Public Good
Lovett C. Peters Lecture & Annual Dinner
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 – 6 PM – 9:15 PM
The Newbury, Boston
For generations, champions of free markets spoke with one voice: competition drives innovation, liberty creates prosperity, and open markets expand opportunity.
In the past decade, that consensus fractured.
Do free markets still offer the surest path to shared prosperity — or have globalization, concentrated capital, and economic dislocation exposed their limits? Should markets remain the organizing force of economic life, or must national and social priorities come first? Join us for a timely conversation on the defining economic and political question of our time.
Ed Glaeser
Ed is an economist and Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is also Director for the Cities Research Programme at the International Growth Centre. He was educated at The Collegiate School in New York City before obtaining his A.B. in economics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. Glaeser joined the faculty of Harvard in 1992, where he is currently (as of January 2018) the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor at the Department of Economics. He previously served as the Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston (both at the Kennedy School of Government). He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor of City Journal. He was also an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
According to a review in The New York Times, his book titled Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (2011) summarizes Glaeser’s years of research into the role that cities play in fostering human achievement and “is at once polymathic and vibrant.” Ed is coauthor of Rethinking Federal Housing Policy: How to Make Housing Plentiful and Affordable (2008). He is also coauthor of Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. He chairs the Advisory Council of Policy Exchange’s Liveable London Unit.
Oren Cass
Oren Cass is the founder and chief economist of American Compass and editor of The New Conservatives: Restoring America’s Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times. His 2018 book, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America has been called “absolutely brilliant” by New York Times columnist David Brooks and “A brilliant book. And among the most important I’ve ever read” by Vice President JD Vance.
From 2005 to 2015, Oren worked as a management consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston and Delhi offices. During this period, he also earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was elected vice president and treasurer of the Harvard Law Review and oversaw the journal’s budget and operations. While still in law school, Oren also became Domestic Policy Director for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, editing and producing the campaign’s “jobs book” and developing its domestic policy strategy, proposals, and research. He joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in 2015 and became a prolific scholar, publishing more than 15 reports for MI and editing its popular “Issues 2016” and “Issues 2020” series, testifying before seven congressional committees and speaking on dozens of college campuses. He founded American Compass at the start of 2020.
