Coordination Problem

Students of Society -- Looking forward to our visit with Viviana Zelizer

|Peter Boettke|

On October 17th at GMU, the renowned sociologist Viviana Zelizer will be delivering the 2019 Ostrom Lecture.  It has been 10 years since Elinor won the Nobel Prize. And we are thrilled that Professor Zelizer has agreed to speak in our lecture series, and to help us commemerate this anniversary, as well as help us continue to shape our self-understanding of the methodological, analytical and social philosophical implications of studying society from the bottom-up.  Professor Zelizer's lecture topic is "Why and How Do Social Relations Matter for Economic Lives?"

Watch this presentation on inequality (start at min 42:22) to get a sense of Professors Zelizer's depth of analysis of studying the phenomena, as it were, from the bottom up and impacting the everyday life of the actual people we are supposed to be studying to improve our understanding of social life and the human condition.

Professor Zeitzer also did an episode of EconTalk with Russ Roberts back in 2007.

Happy 100th Birthday to James M. Buchanan

|Peter Boettke|

I am currently at Middle Tennessee State University celebrating James M. Buchanan's 100th birthday.  Buchanan graduated from MTSU with a triple major in English, Mathematics, and Social Science, all while working on a farm to help pay for his college expenses.  From those beginnings, he would move on to graduate study at U of Tennessee for his MA and U of Chicago for his PhD.  His teaching career saw him hold faculty positions at Tennessee, Florida State, Virginia, UCLA, VPI and eventually GMU.  And he held spent some years in Italy as a Fulbright Fellow, and at Cambridge and LSE. Along the way, Professor Buchanan would become President of SEA, Western, Public Choice Society, and MPS, as well as Vice President of the AEA and named a Distinguished Fellow of the AEA, and the 1986 Nobel Prize winner for Economic Science.

He had a huge impact as a scholar, and a very deep and personal impact on his students through the years.  It is an honor to celebrate this great scholar.  Thanks to Professor Dan Smith, director of the Political Economy Research Institute for this opportunity and for organizing such a fitting tribute to this great political economist and proud alum of MTSU.

BTW, we learned at lunch today that that town and county declared October 3rd James M. Buchanan Day in celebration of this occasion.