Liberal Economics in the Heart of Europe (Guest Post by Dan Klein)

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« The Shaky Foundations of Competition Law | Main | Falling Dominoes? »

Liberal Economics in the Heart of Europe (Guest Post by Dan Klein)

The following is from Dan Klein.

I recently participated in a week seminar in the Czech Republic, “European and American Liberalism,” organized by the leaders of Liberal Institute and the Prague University Economics program.

Really remarkable. I know about the scenes in the US, UK, and Sweden. It is different in CZ:

1) The vital liberal economists are the drivers of the Prague University Economics programs, the largest in the country. Along with Charles University, the Prague University programs are the most prestigious in the country. To analogize to Sweden, it is as if vital liberal economists led the Stockholm School of Economics. The largest PhD-granting institution in CZ is principally liberal. (They have three PhD programs, econ, econ policy, and regional econ and public admin.)

2) There is much productive collaboration between the Prague University department people and the Liberal Institute, a leading think tank, also in Prague.

3) Many top public officials in CZ support the activities of both organizations, including the current President and former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus. The liberal scholars are mixing regularly with top politicians and policymakers. As always, the liberal thinkers are disappointed with policymaking, but the conversation between scholars and politicos is alive and well. And the bonds help to ensure that the institutions are shielded from political assault and disruption.

4) In CZ, liberal still means liberal. True, many think that liberalism is the system extant following the liberal reform period of the early 1990s, a very mixed system, and any problems with the supposedly “liberal system” are ignorantly blamed on liberalism. There is confusion. But the liberals are the liberals—not “libertarians,” “conservatives,” “neoliberals,” etc. People misunderstand liberalism, but at least genuine liberalism is called liberalism. Even in the public culture. That was the most exhilarating thing for me.

5) The Liberal Institute/Prague University people are strong liberals. Libertarians, in our setting.

Really very exciting. About 35 students, excellent and motivated. The chief organizer of the seminar, and active editor and translator, and chairman of Institutional Economics department is Josef Šíma. Also vital is Jiří Schwarz, founder of the Liberal Institute, Dean of the School of Economics and Public Administraation and Chairman of Economics Department at Prague University. Other fine guys who lectured at the program: Dan Šťastný, David Lipka, and Jan Havel. They delivered their lectures in Czech, so I had a lot of free time.

Ed Stringham made a cameo, and a nice lecture on private dispute resolution and security. During it, I realized why the topic is so often mixed with anarchy: Because the logic tends to call for the owner of the locus of dispute to provide the fallback rules for arbitration in the event of dispute, and if the locus is owned by government—a school, a park, a street, a bus station—then you haven’t gotten to the private nexus of resolution. Still, the topic need not be bundled with anarchy, a point Ed agreed with.

The major lectures of the program are shown below.

European and American Liberalism

Liberal Institute Summer University 2007

1–7 July 2007, Jindřichův Hradec, CZ

Josef Šíma: European and American liberalism

David Lipka: Liberalism a socialism – a battle of ideologies over the centuries

Dan Klein: Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard

Dan Šťastný: Free trade

Josef Šíma: Globalization and its Challenges

Dan Klein: The People's Romance: Why People Love Government

Charlotta Stern: Groupthink in Academia

Josef Šíma: On the Right to Discriminate

Jan Havel: Money and the Market

Josef Šíma: Economics, law and the Environment

Dan Klein: The Demand for and Supply of Assurance

Edward Stringham: Is Government Necessary?

David Lipka: Karl Marx

Dan Klein: The Hayekian Narrative: The Epic Tale of Statism vs. (True) Liberalism

Josef Šíma: The Limits of Liberalism

Posted by Chris on July 21, 2007 at 11:19 PM | Permalink

Comments

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Re: 4, it applies in Romania too. And in many other places. It can be an emotional win, but as a practical matter, it doesn't change much.

Surprisingly, some of the opposition to the practice of calling libertarians "liberals" comes from "mainstream" liberals, who leech on the traditional party name, who are less "principled" and who engage in mainstream political... whoring (!?).

Posted by: Gabriel | July 22, 2007 at 04:14 AM

Just a detail: the libertarians actually "rule" one of the five faculties of the Prague University of Economics (the other four faculties teach management, IT etc). But that does not affect the fact that they do a pretty amazing job.

Posted by: i-was-there | July 22, 2007 at 05:59 AM

Dan,

I taught in the Czech Republic for many years in the summer and I have sponsored both Josef and Dan as visiting scholars here at GMU. You are 100% correct. It is a very exciting economic scene in the Czech Republic. I would strongly encourage students in Europe to think about the Prague University of Economics as an option for their PhD studies.

Pete

Posted by: Peter Boettke | July 23, 2007 at 02:19 PM

I am sorry, but I am completely confused by this post. I am Czech, lived and studied in Prague for ten years, went through an undergrad and graduate program (at CERGE-EI) in economics in Prague, and yet I haven't heard about any "Prague University".

Which university are you talking about? I can't even google it up!

Talking about "prestige" and "exciting scene", I could write long stories, but I would first like to clarify, what institution are we talking about.

Posted by: pinus | July 25, 2007 at 03:19 AM

Pinus,

Very interested to read your comment.

I found the University website:
http://www.vse.cz/index-en.php?lang=en

Faculty:
http://www.vse.cz/kategorie.php?IDkat=2885

Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

/Dan Klein ([email protected])

Posted by: Daniel Klein | July 25, 2007 at 02:27 PM

I´m afraid this comment written by Pinus was meant ironically. I´m also from Prague and I study at the University of Economics. Pinus, of course, knows this university. Students from other particularly technical and mathematical universities usually laugh to students from the University of Economics because math here is not so advanced and the university is known (which is not always true) as easy to go through. That´s all the story. Don´t bother with Pinus:-)

Posted by: Petr | July 26, 2007 at 12:12 PM

Petr, sorry to disappoint you, but I am actually a University of Economics graduate (graduated in 2001), and I enjoyed the undergrad program there. What you have in mind is the laughable teasing between undergrad students of mathematics or natural sciences and those of economics, where the math students call the University of Economics the "toughest high school in Prague". This is just funny undergrad teasing, and has nothing to do with what I wrote.

What I was writing about is the quality of the PhD program at the University of Economics, and the quality of academic research in international comparison. Try to read for instance these papers to see how our alma mater fares within the Czech Republic:

http://ies.fsv.cuni.cz/storage/publication/2010_wp2007_4_turnovec.pdf
http://home.cerge.cuni.cz/munich/TEXTY/Wp300.pdf

Posted by: pinus | July 26, 2007 at 11:47 PM

CLARIFICATION OF THE CZECH ECON SCENE: I am grateful to Jaroslav “Pinus” Borovicka for his instructive and good natured commentary about my post. We have corresponded by email.

What I learn from Jaroslav does not really alter the impressions I received from my new friends in CZ, but makes me realize that my post was a bit misleading.

The school is The University of Economics, Prague. Sorry for creating confusion by calling it “Prague University.”

The school is indeed a large, old, established major cultural institution in the life of Prague and the Czech Republic. It runs very large undergraduate programs and numerous PhD programs.

But things are different in CZ — which is what I was trying to convey. Jaroslav explained that the PhD degree has often functioned as a signal of seriousness, intelligence, and competence among professional people, rather like an MBA.

The liberal leaders of the school, such as Schwarz and Sima, are helping to bring an old large state institution into a more modern mode, including the transformation of the PhD programs and a more scholarly purpose. The liberal economists are terrifically productive in advancing the intellectual life, including their own scholarship, translations, and a new journal, New Perspectives on Political Economy.

In comparing the University of Economics to the Stockholm School of Economics, I meant to highlight the likeness in producing a large number of graduates (at all levels) who flow into careers in business, government, educational, and journalism, throughout the social life of the city and country.

What is exceptional about CZ is that there is a general lack of “mainstream” Econ hegemony. That is why the was open for liberals to assume leadership.

Hats off to them for bringing good economic scholarship and education into the fold of a major cultural institution.

Posted by: Daniel Klein | July 28, 2007 at 05:03 AM

I was mistaken by your comment, Pinus, because it seemed to be ironic. Understanding better what you have been talking about I apologize for my reaction. I briefly read through pasted references. I am aware of this problematic situation considering international position of the University of Economics in Prague even though I think there is a strong will to change this situation on our faculty (of Economics and Public Administration).

Posted by: Petr | July 28, 2007 at 01:07 PM

Petr, no bad feelings. Traditionally, the University of Economics has focused on undergrad teaching, while research and PhD programs have been marginalized (as you could see from the comparisons in the papers I linked). I really welcome any attempt of the University of Economics to establish itself also as a serious research institution - it is a very long and hard way to go, but it is worth it.

Posted by: pinus | July 28, 2007 at 02:52 PM

It is the same in Romania and I believe in holds true for all Central and East Europe : liberal means liberal although sometimes the parties that call themselves liberal in this areas can have a bad influence on the meaning of the words; also there is no hegemonic mainstream, in economics or in almost anything else - the academic scene is there for the taking.

Posted by: Bogdan | July 28, 2007 at 06:48 PM

It is amusing to read about our little Czech disputes at this blog :) I think it is a bit unfair from Pinus to compare Faculty of Economics and Public Administration at University of Economics (UEP) to CERGE (with its excellent research outputs) from at least three reasons:

1) to a large extent it reflects the gap between Austrian economists vs. mainstream economists regarding their publications in mainstream econ journals in general. As far as I know, CERGE does mainly econometric and neoclassical economics.

2) though the number of econ journals accepting pure Austrian papers is increasing, many of us in Prague are quite busy with re-organizing the Faculty, which was in terrible shape after we "inherited" it. This, unfortunately, impairs our abilities to do research.

3) CERGE is a special institution of the Charles University devoted mainly to top research. UEP does not have anything like that. CERGE also has wider international connections, longer history and larger amount of accumulated human and social capital - this is not easy to change overnight.

Posted by: Pavel | July 30, 2007 at 01:58 AM

Maybe also a small clarification of the confusion about the name of the school. The Czech name of the school is Vysoka skola ekonomicka, which - literally translated - means High School of Economics ("high school" in Czech refers to a university-level school, but not providing universal education in all fields as a university). There are two ways of translating this into English - the official way is "University of Economics in Prague" which is very odd and somewhat contradictory (if it is "university", why it is not universal, but just for economics?). Another way is "Prague School of Economics", which is more telling. Some people use both (because they do not like the first one) and that is what creates the confusion. It would take a lot of red tape business and negotiation in order to change this apparent nonsense - let it be an illustration of how this state - and in many respects still socialist - institution works.

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