BookPeople Presents: Dr. Dean Spears & Dr. Michael Geruso - After the Spike

Please welcome Dr. Dean Spears and Dr. Michael Geruso to celebrate After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People!

This event is free and open to the public.

• Start time: 7:00 P.M.
• Run time: 45-60 minutes, followed by a signing line.
• Location: The second floor of BookPeople.

The authors will be signing copies of the book after the speaking portion of the event.

• To get a book signed, a copy of the event book or an item of equal value must be purchased from BookPeople.

Guidelines:

• Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

• If you have any other questions, please visit our Eventbrite FAQ. If your question isn't covered in the FAQ, feel free to email us at b25saW5lIHwgYm9va3Blb3BsZSAhIGNvbQ==.
• All event guidelines are subject to change.
• BookPeople reserves the right to cancel or postpone this event if necessary.
• There will not be a live stream or recording available.

About the book:

What if the challenge for humanity’s future is not too many people on a crowded planet, but too few people to sustain the progress that the world needs?

Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike, economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso sound a wakeup call, explaining why global depopulation is coming, why it matters, and what to do now.

It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book invites us all to think again. Despite what we may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Spears and Geruso investigate what depopulation would mean for the climate, for living standards, for equity, for progress, for freedom, for humanity’s general welfare. And what it would mean if, instead, people came together to share the work of caregiving and of building societies where parenting fits better with everything else that people aspire to.

With new evidence and sharp insights, Spears and Geruso make a lively and compelling case for stabilizing the population—without sacrificing our dreams of a greener future or reverting to past gender inequities. They challenge us to see how depopulation threatens social equity and material progress, and how welcoming it denies the inherent value of every human life. More than an assembly of the most important facts, After the Spike asks what future we should want for our planet, for our children, and for one another.

About the author:

Dr. Dean Spears is an economic demographer, development economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding executive director of the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.) and the director of the Population Wellbeing Initiative at UT-Austin. With Dr. Diane Coffey, he is the author of the award-winning book Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste. He holds a master’s in public affairs and a PhD in economics, both from Princeton. He is an affiliate of the Institute for Labor Economics (IZA) and of the Population Research Center at UT-Austin. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed outlets including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Climate Change, and Demography, and has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, Time, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Vox, The Atlantic, and The Economist.

Dr. Michael Geruso is an economic demographer, public economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2023 to 2024, he served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on issues of health and demography. He holds bachelor’s degrees in engineering, political science, and philosophy. He earned his PhD in economics from Princeton and completed postdoctoral work at Harvard prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Since 2014, he has served on the board of the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics (r.i.c.e.). He is an affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Population Research Center at UT-Austin. His work has been published in top peer-reviewed outlets including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and Demography, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Vox, The Atlantic, and The Economist.

By purchasing a book from BookPeople, you are not only supporting a local, independent business – you’re showing publishers that they should continue sending authors to BookPeople.

Thank you for supporting Dr. Dean Spears, Dr. Michael Geruso, and your local independent bookstore!

Also check out other Arts events in Austin, Literary Art events in Austin, Nonprofit events in Austin.