Introducing the first episode of our new series: The Hayekian Triangle 🔺 On this episode, our hosts, @vstorr, @ccoyne1, and @PeterBoettke explore the continuing relevance of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Together, they dig into what Smith actually said, why the standard takes on laissez-faire and self-interest so often miss the mark, and what a Scottish moral philosopher writing in 1776 still has to teach us about wealth, poverty, and the institutions that make human flourishing possible. 🎧 Tune in to the Hayek Program Podcast: loom.ly/MHEHcQM

When @StoneZone47 started his PhD program at Clemson University, he knew something was missing from his economics classes. [...] Today, Stone credits the [Bastiat] fellowship with giving him the philosophical understanding and practical tools that transformed both his research approach and his career trajectory. Bastiat Alum Stone Washington shares his Mercatus Fellowship Story. loom.ly/ZB7GOKQ

"When you try to hold it still, you are saying people in the future should be significantly worse off so that you can stay the same." — @vpostrel

Ronald Coase's "Adam Smith's View of Man" (1976) offers an important corrective to reductive readings of Smith's ideas. He clarifies that Smith never reduced human motivation to self-interest alone. Sympathy for others and our relationship with the impartial spectator both influence our behavior. However, these elements reinforce rather than contradict the case for markets. As Coase puts it: "The market is not simply an ingenious mechanism, fueled by self-interest, for securing the co-operation of individuals in the production of goods and services. In most circumstances it is the only way in which this could be done. [...] if one is willing to accept Smith’s view of man as containing, if not the whole truth, at least a large part of it, realisation that his thought has a much broader foundation than is commonly assumed makes his argument for economic freedom more powerful and his conclusions more persuasive." To read more about "Adam Smith's view of Man," click the link below. econjwatch.org/articles/adam…

Happy to have you, Tony! 🎉

Revana Sharfuddin didn't just find mentors at Mercatus. She found the platform to take her research into rooms where policy actually gets made. @R_Sharfuddin_’s work on labor markets and AI has informed real policy conversations, with support that helped her get there. If you are a scholar looking to develop your research and bring it into broader policy conversations, applications for the 2026 Emerging Scholars cohort are now open. bit.ly/4dcmN6k

On this episode, @ECWIHS delivers a keynote lecture at the 2025 Markets & Society conference on the precarious state of liberalism and the cultural foundations necessary to sustain a free society. 🎧 Tune in to the Hayek Program Podcast mercatus.org/hayekprogram/ha…

Welcome to the team, Lily! 🎉

"By the end, the concept of Hayek’s Bastards from the book’s title has not only moved to the background of the analysis, but that its very meaning has become ambiguous." —Erwin Dekker reviews "Hayek’s Bastards: Race, gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right" by Quinn Slobodian mercatus.org/hayekprogram/re…

This was a great workshop put together by Nabamita Dutta and Adam Stivers with the support of @TheIHS at Wisconsin-LaCrosse We discussed multiple papers on the role of economic freedom. We all received great feedback! #IHS #EconomicFreedom #Research

"Kissinger wrote that a 'country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.' Reading these conversations, one can't help but wonder whether a country that abandons its morals for potential security will preserve neither its morals nor its security, while strengthening the greatest threat to both: the state's unchecked power." — @ccoyne1 via @reason reason.com/2026/03/02/kissin…

Private property is more than an economic argument. Alexander William Salter makes the case that its defenders have been selling it short for decades. hubs.la/Q04kkwvl0

Its over a year since Paul Lewis left the world. This paper is a superb contribution to the 'innovation systems' literature combining Austrian and Ostromian ideas. Highly relevant to UK economic policy debates as was Paul's earlier work on training: tinyurl.com/3bkcnkfn

We're hiring two Research Fellows to study the future of scientific discovery. We're looking for rising classical liberal thinkers with deep expertise in science, AI, innovation, technology policy, or related fields who want to develop research, sharpen their public communication skills, and contribute to major policy and cultural debates. Through mentorship, communications training, and a year-long research project, scholars will explore how institutions, incentives, and governance shape scientific progress. Learn more apply: bit.ly/4vtlUxA

I'm on sabbatical this fall. One of my side projects is trying to do a bit more public-facing writing. Because of that, I've started Substack. I hope you'll check it out. The first post is a Hayekian case against pragmatism. Link below - I hope you'll read and subscribe!

Adam Smith was born June 5, 1763. Here are some Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility @UCStoneCenter recordings that directly involve Smithian thought In this episode of The Inequality podcast, Eric Schliesser @nescio13 discusses his great book Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker open.spotify.com/episode/5L2…. Adam Smith plays a prominent role in Darrin McMahon's fascinating Equality-The History of an Elusive idea, which was the subject of a public conversation with Jonathan Levy @_jonlevy, Jenny Trinitapoli, and me, moderated by Scott Ashworth youtube.com/watch?v=Kl_UbjKP…. Smith also plays a prominent role in David Lay Williams terrific The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx, which is the subject of both a podcast open.spotify.com/episode/3wH…. and a public conversation with Chiara Cordelli @chiaracordelli and me, moderated by John McCormick. youtube.com/watch?v=p2xAXHKG… Finally, Smith's thought is an important part of Peter Boettke's @PeterBoettke visions of economics and of liberalism, the subject of this podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/5eG… I recommend his essay Why Read Adam Smith Today? adamsmithworks.org/documents…

One of the most famous claims in economics is that Hong Kong became rich because it practiced laissez-faire under John Cowperthwaite. Milton Friedman called it an "almost laboratory experiment" in free markets. We decided to test that claim in this Public Choice article 🧵

Naturally

Through the Frédéric Bastiat Fellowship and later the James Buchanan Fellowship, Alicia found the intellectual community and theoretical foundations that transformed her understanding of regulatory economics. Today, as an associate professor at West Virginia University running a center and publishing on regulatory policy, Alicia credits those fellowships with building the network and knowledge base that launched her career, so much so that she now sends her own students to Mercatus fellowships every year. Bastiat & Buchanan Alum @Alicia_Plemmons shares her Mercatus Fellowship Story. loom.ly/nXFgbBw

Don't miss the first episode of The Hayekian Triangle: The Wealth of Nations at 250. @vstorr, @ccoyne1, and @PeterBoettke mark 250 years of The Wealth of Nations by highlighting the freedom potential of Smith's project — including his fierce, often forgotten opposition to slavery. 🔗 loom.ly/MHEHcQM