This weekend, Washington University honored the 90th birthday of economics professor Douglass C. North with an academic conference headlined with speeches by internationally acclaimed economists. North, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the influences of institutions on economic growth, has taught at Washington University since 1983.

Amid the tumultuous debate of the health care reform bill, an important issue fell by the wayside. Since 1965, private banks have received subsidies from the federal government in order to support lending to students for higher education.

As Americans do their best to weather the economic storm, architects throughout the country are finding themselves losing their footholds. Nationally, approximately 30 percent of architects are unemployed. According to statistics released by the American Institute of Architects for July 2008, architectural firms across the nation were employing a total of 224,000 people. By January 2009, that number had dropped to 206,000.

Who is President Barack Obama? Some characterize him as the champion of the Left. Others cast him as a shrewd moderate, cunningly attempting to implement practical policies that would work for America.

One year ago, two Washington University economists made a prediction about the future of the U.S. economy: a crisis on the order of the 1981 recession.

It took a while for her to figure it out, but Professor Melanie Blackwell knew that her olive farm could not stay around for long.