George Stigler: Enigmatic Price Theorist of the Twentieth Century

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George Stigler was unquestionably one of the post-war giants of the economics profession. Along with such compatriots as Milton Friedman, Aaron Director, Gary Becker and others at Chicago, he would manage to radically reshape the contours of the discipline, engineering a virtual counter-revolution against the previous post-war consensus. Stigler essentially pioneered the fields of industrial organisation and regulatory economics while contributing landmark studies to the history of economic thought. George Stigler was awarded a much-deserved Nobel Prize in 1982.

At heart always a shy boy from the provinces, defending himself and his beliefs against the demands of a more wicked and devious world, he remained one of the only truly inscrutable figures in the history of modern economics. A kind, deeply caring family man, he fended off those outside his inner circle by employing a razor sharp, and often cruel, wit, keeping friends, colleagues and especially enemies at an arm’s distance. “… [there was] the student who came to George complaining that he didn’t deserve the ‘F’ he’d received in George’s course. George agreed but explained that ‘F’ was the lowest grade the administration allowed him to give.” Many who had the fortune, or misfortune, of coming within the range of his sharp tongue, even in the seeming context of an innocent encounter, would bear the scars of that contact for years to come. “With a paper like this, [delivering it] under the table, would not be inappropriate.”

This volume is then one of the first to shed light on an entirely enigmatic figure by approaching both the man and his work from very divergent and original perspectives. Whether it succeeds is up to the whims of the reader. Or as George Stigler was wont to say, “Let the chips fall where they may.”

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1. The Protestant Father as Economist- Craig Freedman
Part I: A Biographical Perspective
2. The Curmudgeon as Teacher: Afternoon Coffee with Mark Blaug- Craig Freedman
3. Fathers and Sons: A Conversation with Stephen Stigler- Craig Freedman
4. The Way Things Work: The Empirical Bent of Economists: Ronald Coase on George Stigler- Craig Freedman
5. The Chicago Battler: Sherwin Rosen on George Stigler, Chicago and Economics- Craig Freedman
6. What Price Glory: James Kindahl Airs Some Views on George Stigler- Craig Freedman
7. George Stigler’s Career Moves: The roles of contingency, self-interest, ideology, and intellectual commitment- David Mitch
Part II: Voyages on the Seas of History and Economic Thought

8. George Stigler’s Adam Smith: Successes and Failures- Jeffrey T. Young9. George Stigler as a Reader of Adam Smith- David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart
10. Stigler on Ricardo- Heinz D. Kurz
11. George Stigler: Marshall’s Loyal but Faithless Follower- Neil Hart
12. Shattering Hope and Building Empire: Economics Imperialism at Chicago, George Stigler and Aaron Director- Edward Nik-Khah and Robert Van Horn
13. George Stigler, the first apostle of the “Coase theorem”- Elodie Bertrand
14. Roads Not Taken: The Coase Conundrum- Craig Freedman
15. George J. Stigler’s relationship to the Virginia school of political economy- Gordon L. Brady and Francesco Forte
Part III: The Pervasive Lightness of the Chicago Price Theory

16. Between Old and New: George Stigler’s Chicago Price Theory- J. Daniel Hammond17. George Stigler: Knowledge, preferences and choices- Marina Bianchi
18. Textual and Scientific Exegesis: George Stigler and Method in Economic Science- M. Ali Khan and Edward E. Schlee
19. Stigler on the Science of Economics: A Tale of Two Knights- Peter J. Boettke Rosolino A. Candela20. James Buchanan and George Stigler: Divergent Legacies from Frank Knight- Richard E. Wagner

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Craig Freedman,having failed to succeed as a professional mime or a forensic accountant, in a move reeking of desperation, settled on becoming an academic economist instead. Whether this was an inspired or well-intention decision remains unknown.

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George Stigler was unquestionably one of the post-war giants of the economics profession. Along with such compatriots as Milton Friedman, Aaron Director, Gary Becker and others at Chicago, he would manage to radically reshape the contours of the discipline, engineering a virtual counter-revolution against the previous post-war consensus. Stigler essentially pioneered the fields of industrial organisation and regulatory economics while contributing landmark studies to the history of economic thought. George Stigler was awarded a much-deserved Nobel Prize in 1982.

At heart always a shy boy from the provinces, defending himself and his beliefs against the demands of a more wicked and devious world, he remained one of the only truly inscrutable figures in the history of modern economics. A kind, deeply caring family man, he fended off those outside his inner circle by employing a razor sharp, and often cruel, wit, keeping friends, colleagues and especially enemies at an arm’s distance. “… [there was] the student who came to George complaining that he didn’t deserve the ‘F’ he’d received in George’s course. George agreed but explained that ‘F’ was the lowest grade the administration allowed him to give.” Many who had the fortune, or misfortune, of coming within the range of his sharp tongue, even in the seeming context of an innocent encounter, would bear the scars of that contact for years to come. “With a paper like this, [delivering it] under the table, would not be inappropriate.”

This volume is then one of the first to shed light on an entirely enigmatic figure by approaching both the man and his work from very divergent and original perspectives. Whether it succeeds is up to the whims of the reader. Or as George Stigler was wont to say, “Let the chips fall where they may.”

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Features contributions from a wide-range of economists as well as interviews with George Stigler's family and friends;