Understanding Liberty and Choice: Property Rights and Economic Development

Co-sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc.

Expert panel, featuring: Lee Alston Ph.D. Director, Environment and Society Program, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado;Research Associate, National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER)

Gary Libecap Ph.D. Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California at Santa Barbara;Fellow, Hoover Institution

When: October 22-24, 2009

Where: Scottsdale, AZ-Scottsdale Marriott Suites

Sessions and readings

Session 1: Large Group activity


Session 2: Why Are Some Nations Rich and Others Poor?
North, Douglass C. “Institutions, Ideology, and Economic Performance, “ Cato Journal, 11(3), 1992. pp. 477-88.

Easterly, William. “Planners Versus Searchers.” The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin, 2006. pp. 3-37.

Session 3: The Philosophy of Property Rights
Hume, David. “Of the Origin of Justice and Property.” A Treatise of Human Nature. London: Oxford University Press, 1896. pp. 176-194.

Locke, John. “Of Property.” in The Founders Constitution, Vol. 1, ed. By Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1987. pp. 580-85.

Session 4: Property Rights and Markets
Alchian, Armen with Harold Demsetz. “The Property Rights Paradigm.” The Collected Works of Armen Alchian, Volume 2: Property Rights and Economic Behavior. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2006. pp. 84-96.

Alchian, Armen. “Market Prices, Property, and Behavior,” The Collected Works of Armen Alchian, Volume 2: Property Rights and Economic Behavior. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2006. pp. 460-80.

Lawson, Robert. “Economic Freedom and Property Rights: The Institutional Environment of Productive Entrepreneurship,” in Making Poor Countries Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development, ed. by Benjamin Powell. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. pp. 112-133.

Session 6: Institutional Weakness, Characteristics and Consequences
DeSoto, Hernando. “The Mystery of Legal Failure,” The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. New York: Basic Books, 2000. pp. 153-206.

Easterly, William. “You Can’t Plan a Market,” The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin, 2006. pp. 60-112.

Session 7: Property Rights and the Future of Economic Development
Leeson, Peter. “Escaping Poverty: Foreign Aid, Private Property, and Economic Development.” The Journal of Private Enterprise, Spring, 2008. pp. 39–60.

Sachs, Jeffrey. “Making the Investment Needed to End Poverty.” The End of Poverty. New York: Penguin, 2005. pp. 244–265.

Peter Blair Henry

Peter Blair Henry of Stanford University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about economic development. Henry compares and contrasts the policy and growth experience of Barbados and Jamaica. Both became independent of England in the 1960s, so both inherited similar institutions. But each pursued different policies with very different results. Henry discusses the implications of this near-natural experiment for growth generally and the importance of macroeconomic policy for achieving prosperity. The conversation closes with a discussion of Henry's research on stock market reactions as a measure of policy's effectiveness.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/07/peter_henry_on.html

FTE online classes

You can’t afford to wait any longer to take advantage of the fastest growing opportunity in economics education!


Dear Colleague,

The FTE is pleased to announce its online course offerings for Fall 2009, including the new Economics of Disaster Online, offered for the first time. We are hoping that you'll be among the first to take advantage of these tremendous professional development courses. These courses provide teachers with:

* Economics curriculum, including lectures and accompanying activities
* Instruction by nationally-acclaimed instructors

One past participant proclaimed, "I would definitely take another online FTE course. . . . The curriculum and instruction in this online course was of the highest quality - rich, robust and interactive".

Course Offerings:
Economics Online for Teachers - Part 1 (EOFT 1)

* Dates: September 15 to November 30, 2009
* 2 Semester Hours of Graded Graduate Credit

Economics Online for Teachers - Part 2 (EOFT 2)

* Dates: September 15 to November 30, 2009
* 2 Semester Hours of Graduate Credi

Deadline to apply: September 4, 2009 for both EOFT 1 & EOFT 2. Applications will be accepted on a first come / first serve basis. Enroll today - programs fill quickly.

Note: Students in EOFT-1 may not be concurrently enrolled in either EOFT-2, CAPO or EoDO
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor? Online (CAPO)

* Dates: September 8 to December 8, 2009
* 3 Semester Hours of Graded Graduate Credits

Economics of Disasters Online (EoDO)

* Dates: September 8 to December 8, 2009
* 3 Semester Hours of Graded Graduate Credits

Deadline to apply: August 31, 2009 for both EoDO and CAPO. Applications will be accepted on a first come / first serve basis. Enroll today - programs fill quickly.

Note: Applicants must have successfully completed one of the other FTE Online courses as a prerequisite for EoDO and CAPO enrollments. Applicants with non-FTE online experience in graduate level courses may request an exception to this policy.

For more information and to apply, visit our website at www.fte.org/teachers/programs/online/

Please distribute this email to colleagues who may be interested in taking an Economics Online course.

If you have any questions, please call me at: 800-383-4335.

Sincerely,

Cecily Bailey, Online Program Manager



The Foundation for Teaching Economics takes your privacy seriously. Click here for our privacy policy.

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260 Russell Blvd. Suite B · Davis, CA 95616 · Phone: 530-757-4630 · Fax: 530-757-4636 · information@fte.org

Understanding Liberty and Choice: Free Trade and Globalization

Featured speaker:
Russell Roberts, author of The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity and The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protection.

Co-sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc.

When: May 14-16, 2009

Where: Washington D.C., Hotel TBD

What: Working conference, including:

* Keynote address and extended Q and A with Russell Roberts.
* Required pre-conference readings (298 pages) and 2.5 hours of podcasts.
* Small group Socratic seminars.

Who: PTA members only, by application (limited to 30 participants)

* Deadline: Applications must be received by February 25, 2009.
* Selected attendees notified via email February 27, 2009.
* $200 deposit due with application. (Deposit refunded after the program or upon notification of non-acceptance to the program.)
* Participants responsible for their own travel.

2 nights single occupancy lodging and meals plus $500 travel stipend.
(Attendance at all sessions required to receive stipend.)

Selection from the applicant pool will reflect the FTE's desire to assemble a conference group with the following characteristics:

* commitment to excellence in teaching economic reasoning;
* diversity of teaching experience, background, current economics-related teaching assignment, and school type; and
* geographic/demographic diversity (regional, rural/urban, etc.).

Apply on-line Here

Questions: Ken Leonard, kleonard@fte.org
206-910-9374



The Foundation for Teaching Economics takes your privacy seriously. Click here for our privacy policy.

Would you prefer to receive this email in plain text format? Let us know.

Would you like to opt-out of our email list? Let us know.

260 Russell Blvd. Suite B · Davis, CA 95616 · Phone: 530-757-4630 · Fax: 530-757-4636 · information@fte.org

Foundation for Teaching Economics

Understanding Liberty and Choice:
Free Trade and Globalization

Featured speaker:
Russell Roberts, author of The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity and The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protection.


Co-sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc.


When: May 14-16, 2009

Where: Washington D.C., Hotel TBD

What: Working conference, including:

* Keynote address and extended Q and A with Russell Roberts.
* Required pre-conference readings (298 pages) and 2.5 hours of podcasts.
* Small group Socratic seminars.

Pigovian Taxes and Mankiw's Pigou Club

I am currently taking an FTE online class - The Economics of Disasters. This is a wonderful course and will be offered fall, 2009 and I recommend it highly.

In the course of an online discussion about responses to disasters a classmates mentioned Pigovian taxes as a least worst solution.

My reply:

If the world is constant externalities - that is every transaction impacts third parties in some way, then what would be the approach to considering a world of constant externalities?

The deadweight of government involvement is justified by those who have great confidence in their ability to determine social costs and benefits. This type of paternalism constitutes an incidious threat to liberty and to freedom of action, in my view.

That said, all government action in the form of tax creates a deadweight loss, taxes do not eliminate deadweight loss.

http://www.basiceconomics.info/tax-and-deadweight-loss.php

As you say, Mankiw would argue that the deadweight loss from the gas tax is justified, because the taxing authority knows the social costs and benefits. When I think about this, I wonder why I use Mankiw's text. Note to self - next semester move to The Economic Way of Thinking. Hayek and others were very skeptical that central authority can acquire and act on knowledge.

That said, as you indicate, it is indeed stimulating to explore these points of view. As I write this, I am trying to think of any tax at any time that moved society closer to socially efficient outcomes and . . .

The foundation of a free society is absolute protection of property rights. Surrendering that absolute right must be justified by significant and extraordinary potential gain.

From a source with an admitted skepticism toward taxation

CATO - the Pigovian Problem

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv31n2/v31n2-5.pdf

and

CATO - Against the New Paternalism

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa563.pdf

Foundation for Teaching Economics - new course

The FTE has developed a new online course - Economics of Disasters to be piloted during the Spring, 2009 semester and offered for graduate credit during the Fall, 2009 semester.

Foundation for Teaching Economics

Understanding Liberty & Choice: Property Rights in American History
Welcome to the FTE blog supporting the joint FTE/Liberty Fund conference on Property Rights in American History to be held Dec. 4 - 6, 2008, in Denver.

We are delighted that you will be participating in this conference. As you're aware, the conference combines presentations, interactive learning, and Socratic Seminar sessions. This pre-conference blog has several functions: First, it is designed to introduce you to your Socratic seminar discussion group. Then, in a few weeks, we'll ask each of the 3 seminar discussion groups to help us in planning the panel presentations and formulating questions for the panelists - but that's down the road a little way. For now, we just want you to get to know one another.


There will be 3 Socratic Seminar groups in Denver, and you've been assigned to the BLUE group. All members of your Socratic Seminar group have been invited to join this blog. Given the range of experience with online conversation, we'll start simply - by meeting one another.

Free Trade, Globalization, and Economic Development

The series of joint FTE and Liberty Fund colloquium continues in May with:
Understanding Liberty and Choice: Free Trade, Globalization, and Economic Development.

As with the previous colloquium, the unique characteristics of the FTE and Liberty Fund approaches will be integrated. The keynote speaker, Pietra Rivoli will bring her expertise to our discussion which is centered around a number of readings including her acclaimed book - The Travels of a T Shirt in the Global Economy.

Looking forward to our discussions in May. Please feel free to post questions, comments or resources here that are relevant to our meeting.


Click here for a look at the full conference schedule as well as our readings.

FTE Trustee Meeting

On Friday April 11, 2008 I attended the FTE Trustee meeting as an invited guest to overview online learning and the FTE online courses. Relevant to that discussion are the following:

New Answers for E Learning - US News and World Report

Number of Students Taking Online Classes Grows - USA Today


Sloan Report - Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning

Course Management Systems

Blog example


EDSUO blog

EDSUO wiki

Liberty Fund - March 17-19

I will be in Indianapolis as an FTE representative for the Liberty Fund “Co-Sponsored Alliance Meeting”, March 17-19, 2008.

This meeting will consist of two Socratic sessions on the morning of the 18th followed by 4 breakout sessions relating to the logistics of Liberty Fund conference.

Socratic Session One

Why Liberty? A Collection of Liberty Fund Essays

On Liberty - JS Mill

The Use of Knowledge in Society - FA Hayek

Capitalism and Freedom

Socratic Session Two

Why Liberty? A Collection of Liberty Fund Essays

A Place of Learning - M Oakeshott

Breakout session one

Discussion Leading

Database Management

Breakout session two

Program design and best practices

Conference guidelines and administration

Breakout session three

Liberty Fund Conference Program

Proposal Development

Breakout session four

Readings and copyrights

Conference evaluation and feedback

Economics of Disasters

On March 6 the FTE was in Tempe for:

The Economics of Disasters workshop. Registration and a continental breakfast began at 8:00am for all our participants. The general program began promptly at 8:30am with an introduction to disasters by Kathy Ratte.


Kathy provided an excellent overview of lesson one in the five lesson curriculum sequence that makes up the FTE Economics of Disasters. During the course of the workshop, participants had the opportunity to engage with the following activities:


Are Disasters Good for the Economy?
Price Gouging Activity
Nobody Knows Everything - Game Slides (Adobe PDF/Powerpoint)


Her presentation was followed by an in depth application of economic reasoning to the topic of disasters by Dr. Daniel Benjamin.



Dan presented the economic impact of disasters and extended the discussion through an analysis of the role of the government in the mitigation of the results of disaster.

The Arizona Council on Economic Education’s goals are to assist teachers in improving their students’ economic and financial literacy and decision making skills, by providing them with content, methodologies and practical tools.

“Understanding Liberty and Choice: The Contributions of Experimental Economics” - Sept. 26-28

This conference on experimental economics would include thirty participants drawn from the Foundation for Teaching Economics’ Professional Teacher Association membership. The conference would be a modified repeat of a conference we previously co-sponsored with the Foundation for Teaching Economics. The goal of the conference would be to introduce a group of outstanding teachers to the classical underpinnings of experimental economics and its theory and current practice. The program would also give these participants the opportunity to discuss, in detail, the nature of experimental economics and its relation to issues of liberty and responsibility with professional researchers in the field.