“The key message of my talk this evening is, I think that when it comes to economic policy … ideas about how the economy works are just a key determinate of policy actions and the success of a policy depends on the soundness of the ideas,” said Christina Romer on Thursday night in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

“And that has certainly been true of the policy response to the Great Recession,” she said.

Romer was the former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a position she had from January 2009 to September 2010. In that position, Romer was one of four economic principals who met with President Barack Obama frequently to work toward solutions to solve the Great Recession.

Romer’s speech focused on three different policies that have a major effect on solving our nations current economic crisis.

“Monetary policy, housing policy and fiscal policy actions have all had their roots in the prevailing economic ideas,” Romer said.”The policy responses have been most successful when the ideas behind them are based on strong empirical evidence and careful economic theory.”

Throughout the speech, Romer discussed the plans put in place for each of these policies, and how she felt that many of the ideas did help slow the economic free fall that the country found itself in at the start of the Great Recession in 2007 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. She also believes that “the Fed” has more recently become less aggressive in working toward solutions.

Romer, who is the Class of 1957-Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, strongly believes that it is ideas that are important in solving these problems, not necessarily the charisma of the leader.

“It’s about strengths of one’s ideas,” she said. “It’s about where you lead people, not just whether you get them to follow you.”

As well as looking into the policies that have been used to try and pull the United States out of the Great Recession, Romer discussed the importance of having voters “look past the superficial attributes … focus on a candidate’s ideas. We need to demand that our potential leaders explain their views on how the economy works and ask them to defend the soundness of their ideas.”

Nicolle Rodriguez, freshman in pre-med, felt that the speech was well-rounded and covered many important issues.

“I feel that it was very imformative … she answered a lot of questions that I’ve had,” Rodriguez said.

Romer has often been labeled as the optimistic member of the CEA, a description that certainly fits her demeanor as well as her speech.

“My optimism comes from a belief that sensible policies can indeed help us to solve our economic problems as long as they are based on sound ideas and rigorous evidence,” Romer said.

Romer is the fall 2011 Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics. The lecture was part of the Women’s Leadership Series. There were approximately 378 attendees to the lecture.