Janet Currie was named one of the top 10 women in Economics by the World Economic Forum in July 2015, she has presented her work in venues in venues ranging from the White House to the European Investment Bank. Janet Currie is a pioneer in the economic analysis of child development. Her current research focuses on socioeconomic differences in health and access to health care, environmental threats to health, the important role of mental health, and the long-run impact of health problems in pregnancy and early childhood. 

Governments and families invest in children in many ways. Research shows that many of these investments have high returns, improving children's health, education, and future employment and earnings. Yet despite these successes, there is growing concern about a youth mental health crisis.

This festival opening lecture considers the extent to which a range of investments in children impact child mental health, and asks how targeted investments in child mental health could be made more impactful.

Talk by Janet Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the co-director of Princeton's Center for Health and Wellbeing, and she co-directs the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She holds honorary degrees from the University of Lyon and the University of Zurich and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and of the American Academy of Art and Sciences. She is serving as the President of the American Economic Association in 2024 and has served as the President of the American Society of Health Economics and the Society of Labor Economics. She is the Distinguished CES Fellow for 2023 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Society of Labor Economists, and of the Econometric Society.  She was chosen as a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist in 2019 and won the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2023.  She was named one of the top 10 women in Economics by the World Economic Forum in July 2015. Currie has served on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science, as the Editor of the Journal of Economic Literature, and on the editorial boards of many other journals. She has published four books and more than 200 articles and presented her work at universities around the world as well as in venues ranging from the White House to the European Investment Bank.

Commentator -

- Mari Rege, professor i samfunnsøkonomi på Handelshøyskolen ved Universitetet i Stavanger, hvor hun også leder UiS sitt programområde for arbeidsøkonomi og leder Synapse Lab. Hennes spesialfelt er arbeidsmarkedsøkonomi, utdanningsøkonomi og adferdsøkonomi. Hun forsker på læring og motivasjon i tidlig barndom, skole og arbeidsliv