2026 Summer Institute

2026 SUMMER INSTITUTE

Tuesday June 2, 2026:

3 pm-6 pm: Participants check in to the AC Durham

6 pm: Meet in lobby of the AC Durham for transport to opening dinner

6:30 pm: Welcome Dinner at Devil’s Krafthouse, located on 1^st floor of the Brodhead Center

            416 Chapel Drive, Durham NC 27708

Wednesday June 3, 2026:

[Note: All morning sessions begin at 9:30. All afternoon sessions begin at 2:30. All sessions will be held in 113 Social Sciences.] 

Transportation from the AC Durham will run on the following schedule:

Depart from AC Durham Lobby: 9 am

Depart from Social Sciences: 6 pm

9:30 am, Session 1 – Introductions of Program and Participants; Tips on Setting Up a History of Economic Thought Course – Caldwell, Medema

The Greeks and Scholastics – Medema 

• Aristotle, Politics and Nichomachean Ethics, excerpts. In Steven Medema and Warren Samuels, eds. The History of Economic Thought: A Reader (2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 4-17. (Henceforth readings found in this book will be noted by M&S.)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, excerpts, in M&S, pp. 18-34.
• Michael Munger, “They Clapped: Can Price-Gouging Laws Prohibit Scarcity?”Econlib: https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html

2:30 pm, Session 2 – Mercantilism – Caldwell 

• Jacob Viner, “Mercantilist Thought” (1968), in Jacob Viner, Essays on the Intellectual History of Economics, Douglas Irwin, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 262-76.
• Thomas Mun, England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664), chapters 2-4, in M&S, pp. 35-44.
• Handout: The Early History – The Middle Ages and the Scholastics/ Mercantilism 

Supplementary Reading: Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers, (6th ed., New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), chapters 1 & 2. A nice intro to the Economic Revolution that spawned more systematic thinking about economics. Lars Magnusson, Mercantilism: The Shaping of Economic Language. London: Routledge, 1994, especially chapters 1 & 2. The historiography of mercantilism.

Thursday June 4, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 3 – Physiocracy - Medema

Introduction to Adam Smith - Caldwell

• François Quesnay, Tableau Economique, in M&S, pp. 106-113.
• G. Vaggi, “Physiocracy,” The New Palgrave.
•  Loïc Charles and Christine Théré, “From Versailles to Paris: The Creative Communities of the Physiocratic Movement,” History of Political Economy, vol. 43, 2011, pp. 25-58.
• Handout: Background on Physiocracy and 18^th Century France 
• Handout: Outline for Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment
• Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1766), excerpts.

Supplementary Reading: Loïc Charles, “The Visual History of the Tableau Économique,” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, vol. 10, 2003, pp. 527-550.

2:30 pm, Session 4 – Smith and the Wealth of Nations - Medema

• Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776] R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd, eds. (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1981). Numbers in parentheses refer to the paragraph numbers of the relevant chapters/sections. Book I, chapters 1, 2, 3 (1, 4), 4 (1, 2, 11-18), 5 (1-7, 17, 21), 6 (1-10), 7, 10c (1-5, 12, 26-30, 33-34, 41-45), 11 (1-9); Book II, chapter 3 (1-3, 19-20, 25, 36); Book IV, chapters 1 (1, 5-6, 9-11), 2 (1-4, 9-12, 38-39, 43-45), 9 (48-52).
• Handout: Wealth of Nations Study Questions

Friday June 5, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 5 – Malthus and Ricardo – Brent

• Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), excerpts, in M&S, pp. 210-225.
• David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), excerpts, in M&S, pp. 265-301.
• Handout: Europe from Adam Smith to the Marginalists

Supplementary Reading: George Stigler, “Ricardo and the 93 Per Cent Labor Theory of Value,” in Essays in the History of Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 326-42. 

Lunchtime Breakout Session I – Teaching Liberal Arts Students – Caldwell

2:30 pm, Session 6 – Marx - Medema 

• Marx, “Preface: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (1859), in Tucker, pp. 3-6. 
• Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” (1880), in Robert Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 683-717.
• Marx and Engels, “The Communist Manifesto” (1848), in Tucker, pp. 469-500, but omit section 3 (pp. 491-99). 
• Handout: The Development of Marxism and Other Socialisms 
• Handout: The Laws of Motion of the Capitalist System

[optional evening event]

6:45 pm, Durham Bulls baseball game.  Depart from the AC Durham 

Saturday June 6, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 7 – Marginalism and Marshall – Medema 

• Mark Blaug, “Was There a ‘Marginal Revolution’?” History of Political Economy, vol. 4, Fall 1972, pp. 269-80. 
• Alfred Marshall, The Principles of Economics, 8th ed. (1920): Book I, chapters 1, 4; Book V, chapters 1-3. 
• Handout: Alfred Marshall and the Cambridge School

Supplementary Reading: John Whitaker, “Alfred Marshall,” The New Palgrave. E. Roy Weintraub, “Burn the Mathematics (Tripos),” How Economics Became a Mathematical Science (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), chapter 1. Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), chapters 1- 5. The last describes the development of the Austrian School and its battles with its historicist, socialist, and positivist opponents.

2:30 pm, Session 8 – Institutionalism – Brent

• Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class [1899], chapters 3 and 4, in M&S, pp. 643-44, 650-75.
• Malcolm Rutherford, The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918-1947: Science and Social Control (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), chapter 1.

 Supplementary Reading, Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class, chapter 2, in M&S, pp. 645- 50.

Sunday June 7, 2026 – Free Day

Monday June 8, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 9 – Defining a Modern Science – Medema 

• Mary S. Morgan, “Economics,” in Theodore M. Porter and Dorothy Ross, eds., The Cambridge History of Science, volume 7 of The Modern Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 275-305. 
• Roger E. Backhouse and Steven G. Medema, “On the Definition of Economics,” Journal of Economic Perspectives vol. 23 (1), 2009, pp. 221-33. 

Lunchtime Breakout Session II – Uses for HET in Teaching Beyond the Survey Course – Brent

• David P. Lepak, Ken G. Smith, and M. Susan Taylor. “Introduction to Special Topic Forum: Value Creation and Value Capture: A Multilevel Perspective,” The Academy of Management Review, vol. 32, 2007, pp. 180-94.

2:30 pm, Session 10 – The Origins of Macroeconomics – Hoover 

• John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), excerpts (pp. 4-7, 12-17, 96-119). 
• Mary Morgan, “Tinbergen and Macrodynamic Models, chapter 4 of The History of Econometric Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)¸ pp. 101-30. 
• John R. Hicks, “Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’: A Suggested Interpretation,” Econometrica vol. 5 (2), April 1937, pp. 147-59. 

Tuesday June 9, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 11 – Game Theory – Brent 

• Robert Leonard, “From Parlor Games to Social Science: von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory, 1928-1944,” Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 33, June 1995, pp. 730-61. 
• Paul Erikson, “Dreams of a Final Theory,” chapter 7 of The World the Game Theorists Made (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), pp. 240-72. 

Supplementary Reading: John von Neumann, “On the Theory of Games of Strategy,” translated by Mrs. Sonya Bargmann, ms. https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~y328yu/classics/vonNeumann.pdf

2:30 pm, Session 12 – Post-World War II Keynesianism – Hoover 

• Lawrence Klein, The Keynesian Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1947), chapter 3. 
• Paul Samuelson, Economics: An Introductory Analysis (New York: McGraw Hill, 1948), chapter 12.

Wednesday June 10, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 13 – The Market and The State: Possibilities and Limitations – Medema 

• A. C. Pigou, “State Action and Laisser-Faire,” in Economics in Practice (London: Macmillan, 1935), pp. 107-28. 
• Francis Bator, “The Anatomy of Market Failure,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 72, 1958, pp. 351-79. 
• James M. Buchanan, “Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy,” Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 2, 1959, pp. 124-38. 

2:30 pm, Session 14 – Monetarism and the New Classical Macroeconomics- Hoover

• Milton Friedman & Anna Schwartz, “A Summing Up,” chapter 13 of A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1963), pp. 676-700.
• Kevin Hoover, The New Classical Macroeconomics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), chapters 2-4 (pp. 65-73).

4:45 pm – Visit to the Economists’ Papers Archive, Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Thursday June 11, 2026:

9:30 am, Session 15 – F. A. Hayek, His Life and Ideas – Caldwell (watch video before class with Handout) 

• Handout on Hayek
• Video on Hayek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI0uXlNFtV0
• F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society” [1945], reprinted in The Market and Other Orders,  edited by Bruce Caldwell, volume 15 (2014) of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, chapter 3 (pp. 93-104).
• F. A. Hayek, “Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative,” The Constitution of Liberty [1960], edited by Ronald Hamowy, volume 17 (2011) of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, pp. 519-33.

The final half hour of Session 15 will be a Summer Institute Wrap-Up – no readings. 

Participants depart AC Durham by 12 noon

Florence Adams is a PhD student in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. She works on history and philosophy of economics, with a focus on twentieth-century North American thought about labour market discrimination. Her doctoral project examines how different accounts of wage determination delivered different accounts of what fairness on the labour market requires – specifically how neoclassical economists came to model discrimination as a market distortion, using the marginal productivity theory of distribution as their baseline, and how those models subsequently shaped statistical analyses of discrimination through the development of human capital theory and the entry of economists into discrimination litigation. All this connects to a broad interest in what the theoretical apparatus of neoclassical economics can and cannot say about economic injustice.

Alexandre Aloy is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Theory at the University of California – Santa Barbara, which he joined after completing his B.A. and M.A. in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris. His research interests are in the history of political thought, intellectual history, and political economy, while his dissertation project focuses on neoliberal theory and reexamines its place in the larger liberal tradition. Alexandre’s work has recently been published in the European Journal of Political Theory.

Josh Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Intellectual History at the University of Texas at Austin in the School of Civic Leadership. His research interests span economic history and the history of economic thought, as well as macroeconomics. In his work, he has undertaken empirical analysis of economic policy, with a particular emphasis on open-economy issues, and sought to better understand the ideational determinants of policy successes and failures. His current history of economic thought projects focus on Nicholas Kaldor, James Meade, and the econometrician Sir Clive Granger. Josh received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in Economic History in the summer of 2023.

Zohal Barsi is a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are in Economic history, empirical industrial organization, and urban economics. In her work, she focuses on precarious consumption and the marketplaces that arise to service our most vulnerable populations. She holds affiliations with the Center on Demography and Ecology and the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison. Previously, Zohal studied Economics and English at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA, and following graduation, was a fellow at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, DC.

Netanel Ben-Porath is a 4th-year economics PhD student at Northwestern University (Visiting MIT for the academic years 2025-2027). Netanel's research focuses on studying the intersection of technology, ideologies, and institutions. In one of his projects, Netanel studies a major democratization reform in 1867 Britain. He finds that once political power is transferred to poorer individuals, economic elites become more invested in molding the working class's worldviews. Consequently, elites increase investment in public schooling a device to retain ideological power. In a project joint with Victor Lavy and Ran Abramitzky, the authors show how a financial crisis in socialist Israeli settlements has triggered a rightward ideological shift, leading to the privatization of the economy. Finally, in a project with Walker Hanlon, the authors study how the expansion of print media has affected national identity in Victorian Britain.

Lupa Bhoumik is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of Utah. Her research interests lie in labor economics, political economy, and economic history. Her dissertation research explores how political economy, macro dynamics, and institutional structures throughout history shape labor market outcomes, with a specific focus on the 'fissuring' of work within the technology-mediated gig economy. Previously, Lupa received a Master’s degree (2021) and a Bachelor’s degree (2019) in Economics from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh. Alongside her research, she serves as a lead instructor at the University of Utah, teaching undergraduate courses in labor economics, intermediate macroeconomics, and international economics.

Liza Brover is a fourth year PhD student in Economics at Yale University. She previously earned her BA in Mathematical Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are in economic history with an area focus on the Soviet Union. 

Connor Bulgrin is a second-year PhD student in economics at Cornell University. His research interests include labor economics, public economics, and economic history. He previously served as a research assistant in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and international studies from The Ohio State University.

Ken Cai Kowalski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Marquette University. His research examines popular beliefs and moral judgments about the US economy, especially how market outcomes are portrayed, evaluated, and anticipated. His recent published studies concern public expectations about AI’s labor market impacts, as well as beliefs about the “perception gap” between economists’ and laypersons’ assessments of the economy. He is preparing a project that continues to explore the relationship between expert and popular views in the construction of consumer sentiment indicators.

Aaron Du is a third-year PhD student in Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. He previously earned his B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Rochester. His research interests lie in formal theory and applied game theory.

Luis Felipe Eick is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Utah. His research interests include monetary economics, post-Keynesian macroeconomics, and the history of economic thought. His recent work focuses on macroeconomic theory, with an emphasis on the links between growth, real-financial cycles, and income distribution.

Tristan Ferreira Rocha is a second-year PhD student in History of Economic Thought at the University of Barcelona. He holds a master's degree in history of economic thought from the University of Lyon 2 and a master's degree in economic history from the University of Barcelona. He is interested in philosophy of economics and the history of economic thought. His dissertation focuses on a comparison of theories of social justice in the works of Walras, Rawls, and Roemer. He is currently working more specifically on the land nationalization project proposed by Auguste and Léon Walras. He is also a lecturer in history of economic thought at the University of Barcelona and a teaching assistant in economics at Centrale Lyon in France.

Ben Gilvar-Parke is a third year PhD Student in Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation addresses balance of payments management in Colombia and he is interested in how economic thought, economic policy, and class interests converge and diverge concerning macro-finance and economic development. He holds an MA in Geography from UNC and a BA in Comparative Literature from Oberlin College

Marwa Katir is a first-year PhD student in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. Her broad research interests span the political economy of multinational firms, corporate political activity, business-government relations, and democratic resilience. She is also drawn to the intellectual history of political economy and longstanding debates over the role of firms in political order. Marwa earned her BSFS from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she concentrated in international political economy.

Bill Lai is a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago. His research interests lie in corporate finance and industrial organization. In free time, he enjoys gaming, reading, and talking to Sean and Milad, whom you may find below.

Sean McMahon is a second-year PhD student in Economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He is interested in applied theory topics in health, finance, and education. Before beginning graduate school, he earned his BA from Washington University in St. Louis and worked as an economic consultant in Washington, DC.

Lucas Miranda is a research professor at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chile. His research focuses on the philosophy of economics and the history of economic thought. In particular, he studies the epistemological implications of the credibility revolution in empirical economics. 

Milad Mozafari is an Economics PhD student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His academic journey began at Aryamehr University of Technology in Iran, where he completed his undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering. It didn't take long, however, for him to realize that his true calling lay far outside the lab; concluding that he was a much better fit for the world of social sciences than the engineering community. Driven by this shift, he pivoted to Economics, earning his Master’s degree from the Tehran Institute for Advanced Studies (TeIAS). Currently, his research interests are centered on Industrial Organization and Market Design.

Karim Nchare is an econometrician interested in theoretical and applied econometrics with applications to development economics, political economy, economic history, and behavioral economics. He is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Vanderbilt University. Before moving to Vanderbilt, Professor Nchare was an Assistant Professor of economics at the African School of Economics and a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Penn State in 2019. He also holds an M.Sc. in Applied Statistics from Ecole Normale Superieure de Statistiques et d’Economie Appliquee (ENSEA), and an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Montreal.

Brandon O'Leary manages Amazon’s strategic investment and warrant portfolio. His work focuses on valuation, exit strategy, and capital allocation, including the design of trading strategies executed in partnership with investment banks. Previously, Brandon spent eight years at Unicom Capital, a long/short equity hedge fund, as an analyst, senior trader, and associate portfolio manager. He received his MBA from the University of Washington's Foster School of Business and his B.S. in Finance and Applied Math from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Gabriel R. Padró Rosario is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. He recently defended his Ph.D. dissertation in Economics at the New School for Social Research titled Resilience and Disruptions. He holds an M.Sc. in Economics from University of Barcelona, and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Puerto Rio, Rio Piedras. His research interests are in labor markets, climate disasters, and financial disruptions.
 

Isabel Peñaranda Currie is a PhD candidate in the Department City and Regional Planning at the University of California – Berkeley. Her research interests bring together the political economy of land, a  science and technology studies (STS) approach to economics, as well as fiscal geographies and infrastructure studies. Her PhD research, tentatively titled Public Values: The Techno-politics of Land Value Capture, explores the relationship between technical expertise and politics through a land-based financing mechanism in Bogotá, Colombia. Beyond, Isabel is a Junior Fellow at the Climate and Community Institute, where she researches the intersection of housing, climate change and insurance. She holds BA in Anthropology from Columbia University, a Masters in History from La Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and a second masters in Urban and Regional Planning in the Interdisciplinary Centre of Development Studies – CIDER in the Universidad de los Andes. She is also the host and producer of Sur-Urbano, a podcast on Latin American cities.

Marcus Shera: is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Eastern University. He earned his PhD in Economics from George Mason University. His research is in the economic history of religious institutions, particularly the political role of Christian monastics as credibly independent political actors. He also is very interested in the interaction of formal institutions and their motivating ideals and over-philosophies and has published in the Journal of Institutional Economics on "institutional incompleteness". He teaches introductory economics and economic history with a special window into how economic theory develops in response to and in turn informs economic conditions.
 

Sally Svenlen (she/her) is a second-year PhD student in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She earned her undergraduate degree from Durham University, UK, and a masters degree from the New School for Social Research, NYC. She used to be an organizer for Rethinking Economics and has previously worked as an economic advisor in the UK civil service. Her current research interests lie in history of economic thought, history of capitalism and law, democratic planning and macroeconomics.

João Tampellini is an economic historian and incoming Assistant Professor of Economics at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Vanderbilt University in 2026. His research sits at the intersection of economic history, culture, and immigration, with a particular focus on the United States and Brazil. His scholarly work has appeared in leading outlets such as the Journal of Development Economics.

Sara Wexler is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Philosophy at Columbia University. Sara’s research interests are in Marx, Hegel, classical political economy, and critical theory. Her dissertation investigates social labor to construct an account of capitalist alienation. Sara received a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley.

Bilgehan Yurtcan is a second-year PhD student in Economics at North Carolina State University. He received his master’s degree in Economics from TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara, where his thesis focused on game theory. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for several years in the public sector in Turkey, including at the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. His research interests lie in environmental and resource economics, with a focus on environmental policy, historical pollution, and energy transitions. His current work explores the long-run effects of historical air pollution, the local economic and health impacts of coal plant retirements, and the efficiency of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. He is also interested in the history of economic thought, particularly how historical context shapes economic ideas and policy.