Distinguished Speaker event, featuring Deborah Cobb-Clark AO
Date
From: Wednesday October 29, 2025, 2:30 pm
To: Wednesday October 29, 2025, 3:30 pm
We are pleased to invite you to our next Distinguished Speaker event, featuring Deborah Cobb-Clark AO, Australia's leading expert on the impact of social policy on economic outcomes.
Psychologists argue that people’s capacity to exert self-control is “one of the most powerful and beneficial adaptations of the human psyche.” Yet many people struggle with self-control, setting ambitious goals for themselves, but then failing to follow through with their plans. Understanding when, and why, people fail to align the choices they make with their goals is at the heart of behavioural economists’ research on decision making.
Join us for a thought-provoking discussion exploring the conceptual foundations of self-control in both psychology and economics, and consider the new opportunities for measuring and studying self-control using Australian data. The session will focus on the emerging evidence linking people’s outcomes to their capacity for self-control and the potential for public policy to improve those outcomes.
Date: Wednesday 29 October
Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm (with opportunity for networking after the event for those attending in person)
Venue: The event at NSW Treasury is at capacity. Online is still available
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear directly from one of Australia’s most experienced economic thinkers. This event is free to attend but registration is essential.
You will receive your link when you register
The timing of this event is AEDT (SYD/CBR/MEL).
Deborah Cobb-Clark, AO, FASSA is Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney. She is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course; an Officer of the Order of Australia; an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia; and a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. She is passionate about preventing poor children from becoming poor adults.
Her research centres on building psychological concepts (locus of control, self-control, risk attitudes) into economic models of family decision-making. She studies the way that poverty affects the attention (cognitive capacity) parents have available; the role of depression, risk attitudes, and welfare receipt in risk-taking behaviour; the role of locus of control and self-control in human capital formation; and the link between parents’ self-control and children’s outcomes.
Bookings are now closed
Venue
NSW Treasury
Level 21, 52 Martin Place, , Sydney NSW 2000