Political Economy Reading Group

Join the Center for Free Enterprise for a one-semester, non-credit initiative in which participants read and discuss selections from classic and contemporary works on political economy.

We will explore the relationship between entrepreneurship, economic freedom, and social flourishing.

The Fall 2024 Reading Group

The theme of the Political Economy Reading Group for the Fall of 2024 will cover the following policy-relevant issues:

1. Unintended consequences of policymaking
2. Law, government, and markets
3. Fiscal and monetary policy
4. International trade
5. Education
6. Discrimination
7. The firm in markets and society
8. Inequality and labor markets
9. Poverty and the welfare state
10. Philosophical views on markets

The Political Economy Reading Group consists of an introductory meeting followed by ten (10) weekly discussion meetings.

Each meeting will run for sixty (60) minutes of formal discussion, followed by up to thirty (30) minutes of dinner and informal discussion. Dinner and informal discussion are part of the program, which all participants are expected to attend. The formal discussion follows a Liberty Fund format, where the discussion leader manages a queue of interventions and keeps track of the length of each intervention.

At the end of each meeting, the discussion leader will provide a guiding question for the next meeting. Each student will answer the guiding question at the next meeting to kick off the day’s discussion. In addition, before each session, each participant must send at least one question to the whole group to contribute and facilitate the following meeting discussion.

Application due date: May 24, 2024

Submit your application

Political Economy Students

Spring 2024

Fall 2023