Dr. Dan D'Amico

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Dan D'Amico successfully defended his dissertation on Tuesday April 22, 2008.  Dan is a deep thinker and committed Austrian economist and radical libertarian social thinker.  His dissertation addressed the 'imprisoner dilemma'.  D'Amico uses economic analysis (market process theory and public choice analysis) to examine and adjudicate the debates in criminal justice.  Should our criminal justice system focus on rehabilitation, retribution, or restitution?  D'Amico argues that while the literature seems to have settled on proportionality, the political production of criminal justice services fails to live up to that standard.

D'Amico also argues that market provision of criminal justice will comparatively speaking outperform state controlled systems.  For his outstanding dissertation work, Dan has also won the Israel M. Kirzner Award for the Outstanding Dissertation in Austrian Economics at GMU.  Congratulations to Dan.

In addition to being an economist full of penetrating insights, Dan is an outstanding teacher.  We will not only be reading and learning from Dan's scholarship for the next few decades, but I imagine the Austrian community will have D'Amico students running around for years to come.  Dan will join with Walter Block at Loyola University of New Orleans next fall and form one of the most promising dynamic duos in the economic teaching ranks.  At GMU, I have benefited greatly over the years from students from Hillsdale, Beloit, and Loyola.  During my career I would argue that the most effective undergraduate teachers as measured by sending students on to pursue a PhD in economics have included Hans Sennholz, Richard Ebeling, and Walter Block.  My prediction is that Dan will follow in that tradition.  We will have to change our nickname for Loyola students from "Block heads" to "D'Amico duplicates" and I for one cannot wait to see the students that Block and D'Amico jointly produce at Loyola and the pure fun I will have working with them here in graduate school at GMU.

Please join me in congratulating Dan for his great accomplishment and wishing him well as he embarks on his most promising future as an economist and teacher.  On a more personal note, Dan is one of the really 'great guys' who has walked the halls of GMU economics and his intelligence, commitment to truth and justice, and his joyous nature will be missed as he moves on to his own teaching and research career.  I know I will miss him very much.  However, I am also thrilled that he has found his career path and am fully confident he will not only make his mark in economics, but will make a significant mark on the lives of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of students over the next few decades.

Comments

[Ian Dunois]

Congratulations to Dr D'Amico.
- Does this mean he may become a contributor on this blog?
- Any student has a chance of meeting and hearing Dr. D'Amico this summer at Freedom University seminar from Foundation for Economic Education and therefore they should sign up to attend at FEE.org before it fills up.
- D'Amico has definitely had his share of influencing many of the undergraduates at Mason and I'm sure he will be missed.
Thanks Dan. Keep up the hard work.

[Jüri Saar]

Any chance the dissertation is also available online?

[Steven Horwitz]

Congrats Dan! Well-deserved.

[Daniel J. D'Amico]

dissertation online soon to come...

[Ben Powell]

Congrats Dan!! Like Pete, I look forward to seeing some of the joint product that you and Walter (and for that matter the entire core of free market guys at Loyola) produce. I have one former Loyola student working with me at Suffolk now and I certainly hope to get more.
Good work and congrats to you and the team at Loyola that just got even stronger!

Ben

[Chris Coyne]

Congratulations Dan!

[Brian Pitt]

Congrats Dr. D'Amico!

Btw, I am quite confident that the Austro-econ way of thinking will "shake-up" the criminological literature. Any chance that your paper will be sent to Criminology soon?

[matthew mueller]

Congratulaions. I was very impressed with how knowledgeable Dr. D'Amico was about Austrian economics when I first met him at the FEE seminar last summer. The school is fortunate to have such a dedicated and talented scholar.

[Steve Miller]

Congrats Dr. D'Amico!!!

[Daniel J. D'Amico]

duplicates? What about "D'Amiconomists" or "Danarchists"

[LF]

Congratulations!

[Professor Michael Saliba]

Dan was a student of mine at Loyola University New Orleans. He was one of the top students that I had during my 32-year career on the economics faculty there. Dan's class participation added much to what was being discussed. He often posed questions that allowed myself and other members of the class to engage in fruitful discussions. He contributed much to Economics Club meetings, which for many students is the thing to do during the bi-weekly 12:30-2:00 p.m. time slot, where pizza and food for thought are plentiful.

It is with great pleasure that I learned he will be joining the Loyola University New Orleans economics faculty.

Congratulations Dr. D'Amico.

Sincerely,

Michael Saliba, Ph.D.

[Lucas Engelhardt]

Congrats, Dan!

Enjoy your time at LUNO, and I'm sure that I'll be hearing from you again. You will be bringing students up to ASSC in the future, right?