Peter Boettke

Peter Boettke is a University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism, and the Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at GMU.

Through an analytical framework strongly influenced by the paradigm of Austrian economics, as well as other intellectual traditions personified by thinkers in the main line of economic thought, such as Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say, James M. Buchanan and Elinor Ostrom, Boettke seeks to develop a robust political economy research program that expands an understanding of how individuals acting through the extended market order can effect generalized freedom and prosperity for society, and how the institutional arrangements within which economic actors find themselves can shape, reinforce, or inhibit the individual choices that lead spontaneouslyto sustained economic development.  Boettke is particularly interested in how these dynamics influence entrepreneurial activity in transitioning, weak and failed states.