We see economic activities as a process of discovery and innovation and avoid conceiving of economy as a system continually in a state of balance. Our perspective pays critical attention to the creative and entrepreneurial sources of technological progress in economic growth and development. We also stress the importance of property rights and freedom of contract in providing a framework for the mobilization of these creative forces.
The Program sponsors both shorter and longer-term visits by professors and advanced doctoral students from other universities working in areas of mutual interest. There is also a fellowship program for master’s students seeking to obtain their degrees from NYU who have a demonstrated interest in a broad understanding of the market economy.
The Program also sponsors the weekly Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes, in which guests from all over the world present their research to a highly professional group of NYU faculty, students and faculty-fellows from other universities throughout the greater New York area. Recent speakers have included Douglas Walton (Philosophy, Winnipeg), Niall Ferguson (History, Stern-NYU), Kevin McCabe (Economics, George Mason), Arthur Reber (Psychology, CUNY), Gerd Gigerenzer (Max Planck Institute, Berlin), and Ejan Mackaay (Faculty of Law, University of Montreal).
The research activities of the Program currently focus upon:
- Knowledge problems of “new paternalist” approaches inspired by behavioral economics
- The phenomenon of “slippery slopes” in law and in public policy and their unintended consequences for legal rules
- Rational choice aspects of ethical decisionmaking and the knowledge requirements of different moral systems
- The processes of competition and entrepreneurship in economic development, and particularly the impact of extra-market institutions in the supply and allocation of entrepreneurial talent
- Intellectual property rights and brand capital as complex adapter systems