Published: October 22, 2009 07:16 am      

Economics author to speak Oct. 29 at Berea College

BEREA — Charles Wheelan, author of “Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science,” will speak at Berea college Oct. 29 on the College’s Convocation program. The program is scheduled for 3 p.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Economics and Business at Berea, the program is free and open to the public.

In “Naked Economics,” Wheelan’s first book, was the author set out to make economics accessible and understandable, even entertaining, to the layman, the book has become a popular economics textbook. Published in 2002 in the U.S. and the U.K., “Naked Economics” was released in paperback in September 2003 and is now being published in seven languages.

“I've never liked how basic economics is taught — too dry, too mathematical, too detached from the real world,” Wheelan said. Another goal in writing the book, he said, was to make it understandable to people who had never had an economics course. “Economics should not be accessible only to the experts. The ideas are too important and too interesting.”

In his talk at Berea, Wheelan’s topic will be, “Undressing Policy and Planning Issues of Today.”

Wheelan has been a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago in September since 2004. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Chicago, Wheelan was Director of Policy and Communications for Chicago Metropolis 2020, a business-backed civic group promoting healthy regional growth in the Chicago area.

From 1997 to 2002, Wheelan was the Midwest correspondent for The Economist. He has written freelance articles for the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other publications and has been a frequent contributor to the Motley Fool Radio Show on National Public Radio and to the 848 program on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio.

In addition to “Naked Economics,” Wheelan is the author of a series of essays on Chicago that accompanied the photographs of renowned landscape photographer Terry Evans in the book “Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait,” which was published in the summer of 2005. He is working on a public policy textbook planned for publication in 2010.

Wheelan holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago, a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.