Editor's Note: North will be available to meet with reporters from 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Allewelt Room of the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center, located at the corner of Old Davis Road and Mrak Hall Drive on the campus's southern perimeter. Economic historian and Nobel laureate Douglass C. North will speak on "Understanding the Process of Economic Change" at the University of California, Davis, on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at 4:15 p.m. His public lecture will inaugurate "Profiling the Social Sciences," a speaker series exploring the social sciences. Other lecture topics will include violence in long-term relationships, child victims and witnesses, and historical memory in the founding of New England. North, who shared the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with another American economist, was recognized for his research on the economic history of the United States and Europe, as well as his contributions to the understanding of how economic and political institutions change over time. The professor of economics and history at Washington University in St. Louis has spent more than 55 years pondering complex variations of a simple question: Why do some countries become rich, while others remain poor? He has been critical of traditional economic theory for its failure to recognize the importance of institutions, which he defines as both formal systems -- constitutions, laws and market regulations -- as well as informal norms of behavior such as morals, ethics, ideologies and belief systems. North has most recently researched the role of institutions and post-Soviet economies, the role of legal and political institutions in Western Europe and the United States, and international and inter-regional trade and growth. Among his books are "The Rise of the Western World," "Growth and Welfare in the American Past," "Structure and Change in Economic History" and "Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance." North's lecture will be held in the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center on campus. A reception will follow. Other speakers in the series include: * Mary Jackman, professor of sociology at UC Davis, will speak on "Getting Away With Murder: The Practice of Violence in Long-Term Relations of Inequality" Feb. 11. She is the author of "The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations," and she is currently researching the practice and ideological representation of violence in social relations. * Gail Goodman, professor of psychology at UC Davis, will speak on "Child Victims, Child Witnesses" April 27. Her research on victims and witnesses focuses on children's ability to provide testimony about events they have experienced or witnessed, especially events related to child abuse, and on the psychological effects of testifying in court. * Karen Halttunen, professor of history at UC Davis, will speak on "Vikings, Druids, Monks, and Pilgrims: Historical Memory and the Founding of New England" May 25. She is the author of "Confidence Men and Painted Women: A study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870" and "Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination." The lecture series is co-sponsored by the Chancellor's Forum on the Future, the Division of Social Sciences, the Institute of Governmental Affairs, and the Center for History, Society and Culture.