Free-Market Economist at WMU

Private solutions to public disasters
April 2, 2009

KALAMAZOO--Dr. Peter Boettke, professor of economics at George Mason University, will discuss "Private Solutions to Public Disasters: Self Reliance and Social Resilience," from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 8, at Western Michigan University.

The talk in Room 3508 of Knauss Hall is the final of a series of lectures addressing the economics of disasters, both natural and man-made. The 2008-09 Werner Sichel Lecture Series event is free and open to the public.

In addition to being a professor at George Mason, Boettke is also deputy director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. His fields of interest include transition economies, the history of economic thought, public choice and law and economics.

Boettke earned a doctoral degree in economics from George Mason University. Before joining the George Mason faculty in 1998, he held faculty positions at Oakland University, Manhattan College and New York University. He was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1992-93 and has been a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute, the Stockholm School of Economics and Central European University.

Boettke is the author of several books on the history, collapse and transition from socialism in the former Soviet Union, including "Why Perestroika Failed: The Economics and Politics of Socialist Transformation" and "Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy." He also is editor of "Socialism and the Market: The Socialist Calculation Debate Revisited" and "The Legacy of F.A. Hayek: Politics, Philosophy, Economics."

Now in its 45th year, the annual Sichel Series is organized by the WMU Department of Economics and named in honor of longtime WMU economics professor, Dr. Werner Sichel, who retired in 2004. The series is cosponsored by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

For more information, contact the Department of Economics at (269) 387-5535.