In the fall I co-teach with Vernon Smith a section of HNRS 329 for the Honors Program.  The course entitled, "Foundations of Economic Exchange", is crosslisted as ES 329 in the Argyros School of Business and Economics.

From the perspectives of two forms of rational orders, constructivist and ecological, the course studies economic exchange and its implications for economic policy. We examine the extent to which reason and the deliberate action of a constructivist order and the undesigned principles of norms and traditions in an ecological order can inform our understanding of impersonal exchange in markets and personal social exchange with friends, neighbors, and family. On the topic of impersonal exchange, the course covers such issues as international trade and a stock market for predicting presidential elections. In juxtaposition to the observed self-interested behavior in markets, we also study the pervasive cooperation that people simultaneously exhibit in social settings and how it is supported by the biological and cultural evolution of the mind.

This course used a combination of hands-on learning in laboratory experiments and roundtable discussions of readings. In additional to the our own research, the readings ranged from works by 18th century Scottish philosophers Adam Smith and David Hume to 20th century Nobel economist F.A. Hayek. 

Students who take this course will learn how rules of law emerge to undergird exchange. Our guiding texts will be Ellickson’s Order without Law and Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit and Rules and Order. By building on this experience students will develop projects to explore different public and private applications to law.