ABOUT THE SPEAKER
On Tuesday 22 September our next Adam Smith Lecture will be delivered by Professor Andrew Lo, Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Andrew W. Lo is the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, Director of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
He received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Yale University and a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He began his academic career at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School before joining MIT in 1988. His research focuses on evolutionary approaches to investor behaviour, bounded rationality, financial regulation, and applying financial engineering to develop new funding models for biomedical innovation and deep-tech ventures.
He is best known for developing the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis. His honours include Guggenheim and Sloan Fellowships, the Paul A. Samuelson Award, the Eugene Fama Prize, and recognition as one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society.
Professor Lo’s speech will argue that, over the past 250 years, durable national wealth has depended not on invention alone, but on a three-stage process: Invention—the creation of deep technologies; Translation—the development of financial mechanisms, expertise, and institutional infrastructure needed to commercialize these advances; and Scale-up—the diffusion of technologies across firms, regions, and households.
First published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations posed a question that has renewed urgency in 2026: What makes some nations more prosperous than others?
The 250th anniversary of Smith’s treatise provides a natural occasion to reconsider the history of capitalism through the lens of deep technology and to ask how nations can turn scientific breakthroughs into broad-based prosperity rather than concentrated privilege.
2026 also marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, a country that is foundationally based on market capitalism as espoused by Smith, and which remains at the forefront of driving the changes to the global economy today.
This lecture promises to be thought-provoking and transformative, offering new perspectives on how nations navigate the modern world.
Please note due to the intimate nature of Panmure House this event is by invitation only. Recording of the lecture will be available via our YouTube Channel.
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