Please join us as we welcome Raphael W. Bostic (AB '87) for the annual John T. Dunlop Lecture, which honors the late John T. Dunlop, a distinguished scholar and a longtime supporter of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Dunlop served as Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, U.S. Secretary of Labor in the Ford Administration, and chair of Harvard’s Economics Department, among other positions.
For many, fair housing has been a linchpin of gaining access to opportunities that facilitate the realization of the American Dream. However, the efficacy of federal efforts to promote fair housing has varied considerably over time and across Administrations. Where do we now stand in terms of fair housing? What will the future hold? This year’s lecture reviews the experiences we have had with fair housing since the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and looks forward to consider its prospects in the coming years, with an eye towards opportunities and risks.
Raphael W. Bostic, (AB '87) has been president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta since June 2017. This year he also is serving as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve.
From 2012 to 2017, Bostic was the Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC), where he first joined the faculty in 2001. From 2015 to 2016, he also served as interim director of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate and from 2016 to 2017 he chaired the center's Governance, Management, and Policy Process department. The founding director of USC’s Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast, his research has spanned many fields, including home ownership, housing finance, neighborhood change, and the role of institutions in shaping policy effectiveness.
From 2009 to 2012 Bostic served as the assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In that role, he was a principal adviser to the secretary on policy and research, helping the secretary and other principal staff make informed decisions on HUD policies and programs, as well as on budget and legislative proposals.
He also has served on many boards and advisory committees, including the California Community Reinvestment Corporation, Abode Communities, NeighborWorks, the National Community Stabilization Trust, the Urban Land Institute, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, the National Economic Association, and Freddie Mac.
Bostic graduated from Harvard University with a combined major in economics and psychology and earned his doctorate in economics from Stanford University.
