Current Research

Current Projects

Tomorrowland: The Economics of Progress and Prosperity
- A working book project that takes the behavioral economics research on overconfidence and applies it where it is often missing - the political economy of progress. The goal is to gain a deeper understanding of our fatal conceit based on the works of modern behavioral economists. Once we see our fatal conceit we have to consider how economies are supposed to move forward if not be our own design. While the first part of the book draws on insights from behavioral economics and stands within the tradition of emphasizing human frailty as Smith and Hayek did, the second half will look at market ordering without a planner. Drawing on insights from Austrian economic market theory, the book highlights the economic concepts of progress and entrepreneuship in the context of constructing our future. The awe of the price mechanism and how today's failures of the market become tomorrow's market success stories are just a few of the core economic concepts highlighted through the medium of the future. (Current Progress: Apx. 20,000 words)

Reverence Toward Rank (Co-Author Rachael Behr)
Abstract:This paper looks to Adam Smith’s analysis of an important behavioral quirk to further public choice research. Following Lin Ostrom’s advice to go beyond rationality, the goal is to illuminate how the behavioral quirk impacts political settings and institutional evolution. Under analysis will be Adam Smith’s emphasis upon the peculiar influence that rank plays in society. In political situations Smith sees the concept of rank as being important by helping to establish peace and order, but also as a threat to our ability to self-govern. Our ability to self-govern, our art of association, is entangled with political decisions via connections that are strongly influenced by our perceptions of rank. This paper looks back to Adam Smith to aid in the development of behavioral public choice by seeing his understanding of a certain reverence toward rank and how it impacts the Ostrom’s art of association.

Adam Smith, Behavioral (Public Choice) Economist
Abstract: Modern research in public choice economics has included identifying how behavioral anomalies impact the process of government intervention in a parallel fashion to how standard behavioral economists have identified how behavioral anomalies impact market functioning. This tradition is not new and just as standard behavioral economists identified Adam Smith as a forerunner, so too can behavioral public choice economists. This paper traces through some anomalies Smith highlighted which would fit within modern behavioral public choice.



Potential Projects:

The Virtuous Discourse of Adam Smith
- Working Paper
- Current research mentioned by James Otteson at Pileusblog
- Won Scholarship Grant to Present at 2011 Mises Seminar in Italy (unable to attend)


Adam Smith's Approach to Public Policy
- Working Paper
- Top 10 in recent hits on SSRN in the category Other Political Economy (4.7.2011)


From Adam Smith to George Stigler: How the Modern Economist has Annihilated Entrepreneurship and Liberty. (Journal Article)


Public Choice Economics Textbook
- Potential project to bring a textbook to the field of Public Choice with Gary Wolfram