Debt is everywhere—in D.C., in the EU, and in your pocket. Will it crash our economy? Can we get rid of it—should we? Who should pay and how much? This program discusses the ethics and economics of debt: two economists (UK, Berlin) and two theologians—one Christian, one Jewish—hammer it out. 

Tsvi Blanchard is a catalyst for change. Longtime social advocate, psychologist, teacher, and rabbi, he has been in the forefront of promoting inclusive, vital Jewish communities in the 21st century. An ordained Orthodox rabbi, he holds PhDs in Psychology and Philosophy, was a professor of philosophy, and director of the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago. He has taught at Washington, Northwestern, and Loyola Universities, as well as the Drisha Institute for Women, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Wexner Heritage Foundation. The Director of Organizational Development at Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, he is a practicing clinical and organizational psychologist in New York. He also is the Meyer-Struckmann Professor of Jewish Law at Humboldt University in Berlin and the Jewish Scholar at the Fordham Institute for Religion, Law and Lawyers' Work.

Fred Harrison is the British economist who offered a 10-year forecast of the 2007 house price peak, which he warned would be followed by a depression (The Chaos Makers, 1997). In The Traumatised Society (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2012) he foresees the onset of a world war unless governments undertake structural reforms (driven by changes to the finance and debt systems). His earlier career in journalism culminated in his exposé of the serial killers of children (Brady & Hindley: Genesis of the Moors Murders, 1994, HarperCollins). After the fall of the Soviet Union, he devoted 10 years to working in Russia. He was consultant to the Economics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with whom he co-organised a Land Policy Congress in the federal Duma. His current research, on behalf of the London-based Land Research Trust, seeks to understand why Western democracies are incapable of adopting optimum fiscal policies for the justice-based society.

Silke Hüttel is Assistant Professor at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin at the Department of Agricultural Economics and member of the Centre for Applied Statistics and Economics (C.A.S.E.) at Humboldt-Universität. She holds a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics and received her PhD in economics, with specific focus on quantitative agricultural economics, from Humboldt-Universität in 2009. Her research interests are in applied economics and statistics. She worked intensively on investment decisions under uncertainty, dynamic efficiency analysis under risk, and land markets. Recently, her research focuses on the interrelations between religiousness and economic performance among rural households in northern South Africa under specific consideration of the Pentecostal churches. This booming Christian movement is known to have particularly strong economically-conducive effects on their adherents. As such, religion constitutes an important determinant of economic development being fundamental for poverty alleviation. 

Professor Dr. Dres. h.c. Christoph Markschies studied Theology, Classics, and Philosophy at the Universities of Marburg, Munich, and Tübingen and in Jerusalem. Award of a doctoral degree (1991) and Habilitation (1994) in Tübingen. Chair of Church History at the Universities of Jena 1994–2000, Heidelberg 2000–2004, and since 2004 at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. 2006–2010 president of the latter. Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Institute for Advanced Studies (1998/1999) and of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University Jerusalem (1999/2000); Visiting Fellow at the Trinity College, Oxford (2009), at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2011), and Stewart Visiting Research Scholar in the Humanities Council, Programm of Jewish Studies, University of Princeton (2010). Doctor honoris causa awarded by the Lucian-Blaga-University Sibiu (Romania) and the University of Oslo. Member and since 2012 Vice-President of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt and of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as well as the European Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Akademia Europea. Member of several scientific advisory councils (e.g. of Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and German Protestant Institute of Archeology), corresponding member of the German Archelogical Institute (DAI). Leibniz-Award of the German National Research Council 2001. Author and editor of numerous publications like introductory course books for his area of expertise, e.g.Arbeitsbuch Kirchengeschichte (1995), Between Two Worlds: Structures of Early Christianity (1999), Gnosis: An Introduction (2003), Das antike Christentum (2006), Kaiserzeitliche antike christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen (2007), Antike ohne Ende (2008), Gnosis und Christentum (2009).

Marcia Pally teaches at New York University in Multilingual Multicultural Studies and is a permanent Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She spoke at the World Economic Forum in 2010; was awarded the German Research Foundation’s  prestigious Mercator Guest Professorship for Humboldt University (2012-2013); and was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin in (2007, 2010). Her most recent book is America’s New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good and she is working on Covenant: The Economics and Ethics of Relationality.

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