Liberty & Society

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For Undergraduates & Recent Graduates:

May 26-June 1 ● Wake Forest University, Winston–Salem, NC 

Daniel D’Amico

Economics, Loyola University
Daniel J. D’Amico completed his economics Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2008 with field examinations in Constitutional Political Economy and Austrian Economics. His doctoral dissertation, “The Imprisoner’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Proportionate Punishment,” was awarded the Israel M. Kirzner Award for best dissertation in Austrian Economics by the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.

Daniel is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans where he has received awards for teaching, research and service. His current research is focused upon applying insights from various political economy perspectives including Austrian Economics, Public Choice Theory and New Institutional Economics to understand the processes of social change as they occur surrounding punishment and incarceration throughout history and in the United States today. »»

Mimi Gladstein

English and Theatre Arts, University of Texas
Dr. Mimi R. Gladstein is a professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her areas of concentration are contemporary American literature, Eighteenth Century British Literature, women's studies, theatre arts, Steinbeck, Hemingway and Ayn Rand. She is the author of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand and The Ayn Rand Companion. She holds a PhD from the University of New Mexico in Contemporary American Literature. »»

John Hasnas

Business, Georgetown University
John Hasnas teaches courses in ethics and law at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. He is currently working on a number of papers, including "The Centenary of a Mistake: One Hundred Years of Corporate Liability," "The Supreme Court and the Meaning of Life: A Legal and Philosophical Primer on the Right to Die," and "Reflections on Prince, Public Welfare Offenses, American Cyanamid, and the Wisdom of the Common Law." Previous works by Dr. Hasnas have appeared in publications such as the American University Law Review and the New York University Journal of Law & Liberty. »»

Bill Kline

Philosophy, University of Illinois, Springfield
William Kline is an assistant professor of Liberal Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield.  He received his B.A. in Economics from Grove City College and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Bowling Green State University.   His areas of expertise include Business Ethics, and Social and Political Philosophy.   He has published in some of the top business ethics journals, where he has consistently focused on liberty, commerce, and moral responsibility.  His courses include Philosophy of Business, Radical Capitalism, and Liberty Studies.  He has lived and taught in Hungary and enjoys learning the language. »»

Mark Pennington

Political Economy, University of London
Mark's research lies at the intersection between economics, political theory and political science with a particular focus on the implications of theories of imperfect knowledge and bounded rationality for institutional design. Mark has a particular interest in the works of Hayek, public choice theory and related elements of the classical liberal tradition. His most recent book "Robust Political Economy" (2011) examines challenges to classical liberal/libertarian theory from neo-classical economics, communitarian political theory and egalitarian ethics and applies the lessons learned in the context of debates surrounding the welfare state, international development, and environmental protection. This book was named as one of the 'Top 5' Libertarian Books' in a recent video for the 'Learn Liberty' series. »»

June 16-22 ● Chapman University, Orange County, CA

Tom W. Bell

Law, Chapman University
Professor Tom W. Bell teaches intellectual property, entertainment, property, tort, contract, and commercial law courses at Chapman University School of Law, where he has taught since 1998.  Before entering academia, he practiced law in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. and served as Director of Telecommunications and Technology Studies at the Cato Institute.  He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago School of Law in 1993. »»

George Crowley

Economics, Sorrell College of Business
George R. Crowley is an Assistant Professor of Economics and member of the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University in Troy, AL.  He earned his Ph.D. in economics from West Virginia University in 2011.  His research focuses on topics in public economics and constitutional political economy, with a specific emphasis on constraining government.  He has had articles appear in journals such as Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, and the Southern Economic Journal.  At Troy, he teaches Principles of Micro and Macroeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics, and a course on the Economic and Moral Foundations of Capitalism. »»

Brian Doherty

Senior Editor, Reason Magazine
Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com. He wrote This is Burning Man (2004, Little, Brown; paperback BenBella, 2006), Radicals for Capitalism: A History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement (PublicAffairs, 2007), and Gun Control on Trial (Cato, 2008). From 1994 to 2003, Doherty worked as associate editor and reporter for Reason, writing a variety of stories on topics ranging from the Americans with Disabilities Act to pollution-credit trading to the independent rock scene. »»

Mark LeBar

Philosophy, Ohio University in Athens
Mark LeBar is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ohio University in Athens, OH. He works in moral, social, and political philosophy. Mark has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Arizona, an MA in philosophy from the University of Washington, and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He received his bachelor's degree in Philosophy and English from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA. Mark has published in journals including American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, and has a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press on contemporary eudaimonist moral theory. »»

Alex Padilla

Economics, Metropolitan State College of Denver
Alex Padilla is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. He obtained his bachelor, master, and doctorate in Economics from the University of Law, Economics, and Science of Aix-Marseille (now called University Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III) in France. His primary research interests are in the fields of applied microeconomics, industrial organization, and law and economics. His doctoral dissertation was on Insider Trading, Agency Theory, and Corporate Governance. »»

Timothy Sandefur

Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Timothy Sandefur is a Principal Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. As the lead attorney in the Foundation's Economic Liberty Project, he works to protect businesses against abusive government regulation. He holds a Juris Doctor from Chapman University and is an adjunct professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. His publications include The Right to Earn A Living: Economic Freedom And The Law, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America, and “Does The State Create The Market?” in the Harvard Journal of Law And Public Policy. »»

July 7-13 ● Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA area

Joshua Hall

Economics, Beloit College
Josh is an assistant professor of economics at Beloit College.  He researches applied microeconomics, specifically state and local public finance and also economic education entrepreneurship and economic freedom. He primarily teaches principles of economics, intermediate micro, and public economics. Josh received his Ph.D. in economics from West Virginia University and graduate and undergraduate degrees in economics from Ohio University. He was formerly an economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.»»

David Hart

Director, Online Library of Liberty
David Hart is the director of Liberty Fund, Inc.'s online Library of Economics and Liberty. Dr. Hart began teaching in the Department of History at the University of Adelaide, South Australia in 1986, received the university teaching prize in 1992, and was tenured in 1994. Subjects taught and areas of graduate research supervised include modern European history, nineteenth-century classical liberal thought, the Enlightenment, war and culture, film and history, history and the Internet »»

James Stacey Taylor

Philosophy, The College of New Jersey
James Stacey Taylor teaches Bioethics, Ethics, Modern Philosophy, and various applied ethics and core philosophy courses. He spends a lot of time thinking and writing about autonomy—an area of philosophy that helps us understand when individuals are truly motivated by their own concerns, hopes, desires, and wills. »»

Claudia Williamson

Economics, Development Research Institute of New York University
Claudia R. Williamson is a post-doctoral fellow at the Development Research Institute of New York University. Her research focuses on applied microeconomics, the political economy of development, and the effectiveness of development policies, such as foreign aid. She completed her Ph.D. in economics at West Virginia University in May 2008 where her dissertation considered the importance of informal institutions, such as culture, for economic development. »»

For Graduate Students:

June 9-15 ● Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA area

Andrew Cohen

Acting Director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics, Georgia State University
Andrew I. Cohen is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics and Georgia State University. Convinced he had no other marketable skills and that academic life was filled with guarantees of riches and job security, he pursued and earned his PhD at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has taught in schools throughout the southeast and midwest; the number of license plates he accumulated as a gypsy academic might show foolish tenacity or luck or something else. Georgia it is: now he’s got a wife, two kids, a mortgage, and tenure. His work now touches on themes in social contract theory, reparations and apologies for historic injustices, and global justice. He was fortunate to receive support from IHS throughout his academic career, both as a graduate student and beyond. In his spare time he lives it up in suburban domesticity. When he’s lucky he gets to go to sleep. »»

Daniel D’Amico

Economics, Loyola University
Daniel J. D’Amico completed his economics Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2008 with field examinations in Constitutional Political Economy and Austrian Economics. His doctoral dissertation, “The Imprisoner’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Proportionate Punishment,” was awarded the Israel M. Kirzner Award for best dissertation in Austrian Economics by the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.

Daniel is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans where he has received awards for teaching, research and service. His current research is focused upon applying insights from various political economy perspectives including Austrian Economics, Public Choice Theory and New Institutional Economics to understand the processes of social change as they occur surrounding punishment and incarceration throughout history and in the United States today. »»

David D. Friedman

Law, Santa Clara University Law School
David Friedman holds a B.A. from Harvard (Chemistry and Physics) and a PhD from the University of Chicago (Physics). He switched fields a few years later, teaching economics at VPI, UC Irvine, UCLA, Tulane, University of Chicago and Santa Clara University; as well as law (including law and economics) at the University of Chicago, Cornell and Santa Clara University. His interests include historical recreation, computers, libertarianism, home unschooling, and much else. In addition to his nonfiction books, he has written two novels: one commercially published by Baen, and another available on the Kindle. For further details see: www.daviddfriedman.com »»

Ed Lopez

Law and Economics, San Jose State University
Ed Lopez is an Associate Professor of law & economics at San Jose State University, and a Research Fellow at The Independence Institute. Professor López's main area of research is in public choice and law and economics, with emphases on empirical models of creative expression, technological innovation, voting, political ideology, and political institutions. His scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in Public Choice, Journal of Political Science, Review of Law & Economics, Political Research Quarterly, Southern Economic Journal, Social Science Quarterly, Eastern Economic Journal, and Review of Austrian Economics. »»

Georg Vanberg

Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Georg Vanberg is Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on comparative political institutions, particularly in the areas of judicial and constitutional politics, and legislative politics. His work has appeared in such journals as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. He is the author of Parliaments and Coalitions (Oxford, 2011) and The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany (Cambridge, 2005). He serves as the political science editor for the journal Public Choice. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children. He is also an avid runner. »»

Readings »