Prof. Russ Roberts is President of Shalem College. An economist, writer and teacher, he is also the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the founder of EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious, an award-winning weekly podcast with more than 750 episodes and millions of unique downloads. Past EconTalk guests include Yuval Noah Harari, Martha Nussbaum, Milton Friedman, Thomas Piketty, Angela Duckworth, Christopher Hitchens, Agnes Callard, Bill James, Emily Oster, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, A.J. Jacobs, Mariana Mazzucato, Alan Lightman, Dwayne Betts, and Michael Lewis.

His latest book is Gambling With Other People’s Money: How Perverse Incentives Caused the Financial Crisis (Hoover Institution Press, 2019). Roberts explores the role that past bailouts played in the risk-taking that led to the financial crisis of 2008. In How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness (Portfolio/Penguin 2014), Roberts takes the lessons from Adam Smith’s little-known masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and applies them to modern life.

He is also the author of three economic novels, all of which teach economic lessons and ideas through fiction. The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity (Princeton University Press, 2008) tells the story of wealth creation and the unseen forces around us that create and sustain economic opportunity. The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance (MIT Press, 2002) looks at corporate responsibility and a wide array of policy issues, including anti-poverty programs, consumer protection, and the morality of the marketplace. His first book, The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism (Prentice Hall, 3rd edition, 2006) is on international trade policy and the human consequences of international trade. It was named one of the top ten books of 1994 by Business Week and one of the best books of 1994 by the Financial Times.

Together with filmmaker John Papola, Roberts has produced two rap videos on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek, both of which have had more than 11 million YouTube views, have been subtitled in 11 languages, and are used in high school and college economics classrooms around the world. He is also author of the poem and animated video “It’s a Wonderful Loaf,” which elucidates the patterns of daily life that emerge without coordination. His series on the challenge of using data to establish truth, The Numbers Game, can be found at PolicyEd.org. Roberts archives his videos and other work at RussRoberts.info.

Roberts has taught at Stanford University, the University of California, Los Angeles, George Mason University, the University of Rochester, and Washington University in St. Louis, where he was the director of what is now the Center for Experiential Learning. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Omer Moav is a Professor of Economics at IDC and at the University of Warwick, and formerly at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also served as the head of the advisory board to the Israeli minister of finance in 2009.

He received his PhD in economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and spent a year at MIT as a post-doc fellow. Moav was awarded in 2012 the Landau prize from the Israeli mifal hapais for his achievements in research in macroeconomics, he was awarded the Rector’s prize from the Hebrew University in 2006 for his research and teaching. Moav’s research focuses on economic growth and development and is published in the leading journals of economics. He often comments in the Israeli and international media on the Israeli economy.

Michael Eisenberg is a Partner at Aleph, a $330MM early stage venture capital fund, which he co-founded with Eden Shochat in 2013. Michael joined Benchmark Capital as a general partner in July 2005 and continues as the partner responsible for Benchmark’s Israeli portfolio. Michael joined Benchmark from Israel Seed Partners where he was a general partner from 1997. Eisenberg began his career at Jerusalem Global where he started and led the firm’s successful investment banking group and partnership with Montgomery Securities. Michael has focused on Internet investments since 1995 and has invested in and sat on the board of Israel’s leading companies and start ups, such as Shopping.com (Nasdaq SHOP, acquired by EBAY), Conduit, SeekingAlpha, Gigya, WeWork, Wix, Answers.com (Nasdaq ANSW), Tradeum (acquired: VERT), and Picturevison (acquired: EK).

Yehonatan Givati is an associate professor at Hebrew University Law School. He is also affiliated with the Center for Empirical Studies of Decision Making and the Law.

His scholarly interest lies in the area of economic analysis of law. His work is both theoretical and empirical. He applies the tools of law and economics to three areas of law: tax law, law enforcement, and administrative law.

He received a PhD from the Economics Department at Harvard University in 2013, and an SJD from Harvard Law School in 2011.

Givati served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School and at Columbia Law School. Before starting to teach he was a Post Graduate Research Fellow in Law and Economics at New York University School of Law.

Alona Bar-On is the publisher, chairperson, and co-owner of Globes, the Israeli daily business newspaper, since 2017.

Prior to her position at Globes, Alona founded and managed ‘Bait VeGag’, an investment fund for urban rejuvenation, established in 2011. Since 2013, Alona has also been a Director at ‘Melisron’, a commercial real estate company, and has also been a Director at Globes newspaper, since 1998.

Between 2010 and 2013 Alona was in charge of the newspaper’s online desk, carrying out vast reorganization and reform. Between 2001 and 2010, Alona was a financial consultant at Yitzhak Swary Ltd., consulting for large firms during their mergers and acquisitions processes.

Alona has an MBA Degree from INSEAD and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Accountancy from Tel-Aviv University.

During her military service, Alona served as a reporter for ‘BaMahane’, the IDF’s weekly published magazine.

Dror Strum is the CEO of the Israeli Institute for Economic Planning. Former Commissioner of the Israel Antitrust Authority (the Competition Authority), specializes in the areas of Economic Policy, Competition, Open Markets and Economic regulation on cartels, monopolies and other antitrust issues.

Mr. Strum is a Law Graduate (Cum Laude) from Tel Aviv University. He started his legal work at the law firm of former Minister of Justice, Haim Zadok & Co., as associate and partner. His work in the private sector focused on Contracts and Corporate Law, Intellectual Property, Administrative and Antitrust Law. He engaged in complex litigation, including appearing before the Court of Restrictive Trade Practices and the Supreme Court.

In 1997, Mr. Strum joined the Israel Antitrust Authority(established only two years before), as its Chief Legal Counsel and as Head of the Legal Department. In this role, Mr. Strum actively engaged in the investigations of cartels and monopolies and bringing them to justice.

In 2001, Mr. Strum was appointed as the Commissioner of the Israel Antitrust Authority. In this capacity, he was intensively involved in the design of Israel’s competition policy and regulations, as well as in major reforms in the Israel economy: in Capital Markets, Telecom, Transportation, Energy and Infrastructures, including the entrance of cable companies to telephony – in competition with Bezeq Monopoly, and the splitting of the BAZAN monopoly over refining. He also participated in the Bachar Reform that separated the provident funds from the banks. During his term, Mr. Strum laid the foundations for modern regulation, and implementing effective enforcement policy as a precondition for free market activity.

Mr. Strum was a member of various public committees, including The Bachar Committee, The Ariav Committee, The Kuchik Committee, The Trajtenberg Committee and The Governance Committee.

In June 2015, Mr. Strum was appointed by the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Bank of Israel as head of the Committee for Increasing Competition in the Israeli Banking System.The Committee’s recommendations were published in September 2016, and in 2017,the Knesset enacted the law implementing the Committee’s recommendations.

Idan is a journalist at Globes newspaper. He is also a regulation researcher at the “minesweeper” project and an Economics blogger. He writes frequently on society, economics, and politics in Israel.
Idan is a 2017 alumnus of FEI.