Christopher Coyne
Encyclopedia
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Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in the United States is a non-profit market-oriented research, education, and outreach think tank affiliated with the Koch family. It works with policy experts, lobbyists, and government officials to connect academic learning and real-world practice...
, George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
.
Education
After graduating in 1999 with a B.S. from Manhattan CollegeManhattan College
Manhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in New York City, United States. Despite the college's name, it is no longer located in Manhattan but in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, roughly 10 miles north of Midtown. Manhattan College offers...
, Coyne received his M.A. (2003) and Ph.D. (2005) in Economics from George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, where he studied with Peter Boettke
Peter Boettke
Peter J. Boettke is an American economist of the Austrian School.-Early life and education:Boettke was born in Rahway, New Jersey to Fred and Elinor Boettke and remained there until he moved to Pennsylvania to attend Thiel College in Greenville and later Grove City College. He became interested in...
and Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution...
.
Career in economics
After graduating from George Mason UniversityGeorge Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
in 2005, Coyne accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Economics at Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden–Sydney College is a liberal arts college for men located in Hampden Sydney, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1775, Hampden–Sydney is the oldest private charter college in the Southern U.S., the last college founded before the American Revolution, and one of only three four-year,...
. In 2007, he left Hampden-Sydney to accept a position as Assistant Professor of Economics at West Virginia University
West Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...
. He joined the Department of Economics at George Mason University in 2010.
Besides his position at George Mason University, Coyne is also the North American Editor of The Review of Austrian Economics, a member of the Editorial Board of The Journal of Private Enterprise, a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, a member of the Board of Scholars for the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, a member of the Advisory Board of The Cobden Centre, and Distinguished Scholar for the Center for the Study of Political Economy at Hampden-Sydney College.
The Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders, which is administered by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, also known as the Atlas Network, is a non-profit organization based in the United States which organizes and convenes workshops, offers training, runs prize programs, and provides advisory services in order to continue growing and strengthening an informal...
, awarded Coyne its Hayek Prize in 2007 for:
"...a series of related articles on the influence of institutional arrangements on entrepreneurship and international development; and on weak and failed states and the problem of nation building. In these articles Coyne applies an Austrian economics perspective to argue that just as successful economies and polities can not be built from whole cloth according to rational constructivist principles, there are limits to what even well-intentioned governments can do to build free markets and free political orders elsewhere"
In 2008, he was named the Hayek Fellow at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
. In 2010, he was a visiting scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...
.
Research
Coyne has numerous publications including academic journal articles, book chapters, policy papers, and book reviews. His primary areas of research include Austrian economics, economic development, and political economy.
Stanford University Press
The Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...
in November 2007 (ISBN 080475439X; paperback ISBN 0804754403). After War employs the tools of economics to analyze the ability of the U.S. to export democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
abroad. The central argument is that continued efforts to export democracy through military occupation
Military occupation
Military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
and reconstruction are more likely to fail than to succeed due to an array of constraints facing occupiers and policymakers. In the book, Coyne contends that failure is due to the inability of foreign governments to centrally plan the complex array of institutions which underpin liberal democracy. Coyne provides a new vision of U.S. foreign policy including principled nonintervention and a commitment to free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
in goods, ideas and cultural products. He presented his book at The CATO Institute in November 2007. In his review of After War in the Financial Times, Samuel Brittan
Samuel Brittan
Sir Samuel Brittan is a British columnist for the Financial Times and an author.At Cambridge he was taught by Peter Bauer and Milton Friedman...
concluded by noting that,
"Prof Coyne is obviously a dove rather than a hawk. But he accepts the case for occasional intervention for humanitarian reasons or to protect US citizens. His main suggestions are to avoid nation-building types of intervention and adopt free trade, if necessary unilaterally by the US. It is perhaps déformation professionelle for economists to overrate the spillover benefits of the latter. But peace and welfare may depend on how far the next US president accepts the main lines of his analysis – a subject even more important than the current credit crunch."
In, Media, Development, and Institutional Change, (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009, ISBN 1847204783) Coyne and Peter Leeson
Peter Leeson
Peter T. Leeson is BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University He authored The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, a book in which he uses rational choice theory to examine the economic conditions and incentives that influenced pirate...
investigate mass media's ability to affect institutional change and economic development. They analyze media's role in enabling and inhibiting political-economic reforms that promote development. The book explores how media can constrain government, how governments manipulate media to entrench their power, and how private and public media ownership affects a country's ability to prosper. Coyne and Leeson identify specific media-related policies that governments of underdeveloped countries should adopt if they want to grow. They also illustrate why media freedom is a critical ingredient in the recipe of economic development and why even the best-intentioned state involvement in media is more likely to slow prosperity than to enhance it.
Coyne is also the co-editor (with Rachel Mathers) of The Handbook on the Political Economy of War (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010).