Friedman Facts.com

Now that the Milton Friedman Institute (MFI) is up and running, we can clearly see that it is pushing a radical free market agenda without regard to scholarly integrity.  May 7th, MFI will host ideological radical Ernst Fehr as a guest lecturer in an effort to stamp out equality and fairness, and instead advocate the re-establishment of both Pinochet and the Bush administration.

Well, not quite. Although the above is exactly what faculty opposing MFI, CORES, led the campus to believe would happen, it can’t be further from the truth.  In fact, the first (as far as we can tell) guest lecture hosted by MFI centers on synergies between the behavioral sciences and economics by one of the most important scholars in the field.  This intersection of social sciences is exactly where economics seems to be headed, and the MFI can only help the University of Chicago in its interdisciplinary efforts by bringing scholars like Fehr to campus.

Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich, presents:  ”Social Preferences – A Foundation of Cooperation, Competition, and Incentives”

Thursday, May 7:  3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Classics 110,  1010 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637

This lecture examines how the consideration of social preferences affects economic outcomes.  For a long time, the behavioral sciences – including economics – have largely neglected people’s social motives. However, evidence suggests that a substantial number of people exhibit social preferences, which means they are not solely motivated by material self-interest but also care positively or negatively about the material payoffs to other persons.  Evidence will be presented indicating that economists fail to understand fundamental economic questions when they disregard social preferences.  In particular, when social preferences are ignored, it is not possible to adequately understand  (i) the effects of competition on market outcomes, (ii) the forces governing cooperation and collective action, (iii) the effects and the determinants of material incentives, (iv) which contracts and property rights arrangements are optimal, and (v) important forces shaping social norms and market failures.