Building Chicago Economics
New Perspectives on the History of America's Most Powerful Economics Program

This book presents a collective attempt to chart the rise and development of the Chicago School during the decades that followed WWII.

Robert Van Horn (Edited by), Philip Mirowski (Edited by), Thomas A. Stapleford (Edited by)

9781107616431, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2013

454 pages, 1 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.66 kg

'Rashomon in the great beating heartland of the Midwest! These essays offer one valuable perspective on the goings-on in and around the economics department of the University of Chicago in the years since the end of World War II. There are other accounts of those developments, and will be still more. This book is a vivid reminder of why we all like mystery stories.' David Warsh, economicprincipals.com

Over the past forty years, economists associated with the University of Chicago have won more than one-third of the Nobel prizes awarded in their discipline and have been major influences on American public policy. Building Chicago Economics presents the first collective attempt by social science historians to chart the rise and development of the Chicago School during the decades that followed the Second World War. Drawing on new research in published and archival sources, contributors examine the people, institutions and ideas that established the foundations for the success of Chicago economics and thereby positioned it as a powerful and controversial force in American political and intellectual life.

Blueprints Robert Van Horn, Philip Mirowski and Thomas Stapleford
Orientation: finding the Chicago School Jaime Peck
Part I. Economics Built for Policy: The Legacy of Milton Friedman: 1. Positive economics for democratic policy: Milton Friedman, institutionalism, and the science of history Thomas Stapleford
2. Markets, politics, and democracy at Chicago: taking economics seriously J. Daniel Hammond
Part II. Constructing the Institutional Foundations of the Chicago School: 3. The price is not right: Theodore W. Schultz, policy planning, and agricultural economics in the cold-war United States Paul Burnett
4. Sharpening tools in the workshop: the workshop system and the Chicago School's success Ross B. Emmett
5. George Stigler, the graduate school of business, and the pillars of the Chicago School Edward Nik-Khah
Part III. Imperial Chicago: 6. Chicago price theory and Chicago law and economics: a tale of two transitions Steven Medema
7. Intervening in laissez-faire liberalism: Chicago's shift on patents Robert Van Horn and Matthias Klaes
8. Allusions to evolution: edifying evolutionary biology rather than economic theory Jack Vromen
9. On the origins (at Chicago) of some species of evolutionary economics Philip Mirowski
Part IV. Debating Chicago Neoliberalism: 10. Jacob Viner's critique of Chicago neoliberalism Robert Van Horn
11. The Chicago School, Hayek, and neoliberalism Bruce Caldwell
12. The lucky consistency of Milton Friedman's science and politics, 1933–63 Béatrice Cherrier
13. Far right of the midway: Chicago neoliberalism and the genesis of the Milton Friedman Institute (2006–9) Edward Nik-Khah.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], History of ideas [JFCX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW]