Media Contact:
Carrie Conko
Director of Communications
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Office: 703-993-4899
Email: cconko@gmu.edu
Books
Paths to PropertyKarol Boudreaux, Paul Dragos AligicaDecember 18, 2007 This book explores some of the problems and challenges associated with the strategies and policy processes that may lead to the creation of property rights. There is a danger that the cumulated disappointments resulting from defective implementation of formalized property rights will lead, sooner or later, to an overall dismissal of the very idea that secure property are essential for growth and human flourishing. This book argues that there is only one way to stop this disturbing possibility: more sensible, more realistic, and better informed implementation strategies. |
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"Why Have Kiwis Not Become Tigers? Reforms, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development in New Zealand"Frederic SautetNovember 8, 2007 Frederic Sautet's chapter "Why Have Kiwis Not Become Tigers? Reforms, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development in New Zealand" appears in the book Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development, edited by Benjamin Powell and with a forward by Deepak Lal. |
"Entrepreneurship or Entremanureship? Digging Through Romania's Institutional Environment for Transitional Lessons"Peter Boettke, Christopher Coyne, Peter LeesonNovember 8, 2007 Peter Boettke, Christopher Coyner, and Peter Leeson's chapter "Entrepreneurship or Entremanureship? Digging Through Romania's Institutional Environment for Transitional Lessons" appears in the book Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development, edited by Benjamin Powell and with a forward by Deepak Lal. |
Discover Your Inner EconomistTyler CowenAugust 2, 2007 In Discover Your Inner Economist one of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant. |
Prophecies of Doom and Scenarios of ProgressPaul Dragos AligicaMay 30, 2007 The images of the future and of the environmental and demographic challenges humanity will encounter in the coming decades tend to be framed in the public discourse more often than not from a "doom and gloom," "limits to growth" perspective. The origins of this propensity stem from the successful efforts of an intellectual and political movement that--starting from the mid sixties--tried to impose its pessimistic interpretation of the dilemmas posed by the technological revolution and the economic growth associated to it. This book by Paul Dragos Aligica focuses on the alternative paradigm, the pro-growth intellectual tradition that rejected the prophecies of doom and called for realism and pragmatism in dealing with the challenge of the future. The book uses as a vehicle the work of the two major founders of this alternative approach: Herman Kahn and Julian Simon. |
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After WarChristopher CoyneMay 25, 2007 Why does liberal democracy take hold in some countries but not in others? Christopher Coyne explores the history of U.S. military intervention and U.S.-led reconstruction from 1898 to present in this book to be published by Stanford University Press in November 2007. |
Property Rights and Resource Conflict in the SudanKarol BoudreauxJune 6, 2006 This article is a chapter in the book Realizing Property Rights, edited by Hernando de Soto and Francis Cheneval. It explores the role weak property rights play in exacerbating conflict in Sudan. |
Good and PlentyTyler CowenApril 17, 2006 Americans typically either want to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, or they believe that public arts funding should be dramatically increased because the arts cannot survive in the free market. It would take a lover of the arts who is also a libertarian economist to bridge such a gap. Enter Tyler Cowen. In this book he argues why the U.S. way of funding the arts, while largely indirect, results not in the terrible and the small but in Good and Plenty--and how it could result in even more and better. |
Institutions and the Path to the Modern EconomyAvner GreifJanuary 16, 2006 It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes are caused by institutional differences. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. Arguments of this sort, however, often neglect more fundamental issues, such as what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. This book seeks to overcome these scholarly problems by laying out a unified conceptual, analytical, and empirical review of institutional change. |
The Vanity of the PhilosopherDavid LevyOctober 11, 2005 The Vanity of the Philosopher reveals the consequences of heirarchy in social science. It shows how the vanity of the philosopher has led to recomendations that range from the more benign but still objectionable "looking after" paternalism to overriding preferences, and, in the extreme, to eliminating purportedly bad preferences. the authors suggest that an approach that abstracts from difference and presumes equal competence is morally compelling. |







