the hubbub about friedman

Earlier this year, the University of Chicago announced plans to create a new research institute devoted to:

providing a distinctive intellectual environment that encourages discourse and synergies across a variety of research areas, that fosters ambitious research agendas, and that promotes criticism and scrutiny as a device to maintain excellence. (PDF)

However, this institute was met with strong opposition from a number of Chicago faculty and students. The reason? It would be named the Milton Friedman Institute (MFI).

The University might have foreseen and headed off concerns, if possible, but they did not. The situation escalated, resulting in a petition signed by 101 professors. Their letter raised two solid points: One, that the 200-million-dollar institute will exclusively concern itself with one ideology (free market) and one discipline (economics). Two, that they will be embarrassed to acknowledge to their international colleagues that the invidious Chicago School of Economics is alive and well. This latter opposition on ideological grounds claims that Friedman's ideas have weakened local economies.

A response by UC professor John Cochrane dissects the petition in a humorous, but rather effective, manner. In fact, on reading the initial institute proposal (PDF), I noted that many of their concerns were addressed preemptively, particularly regarding synergies with other research fields and institutes.

There is no room now to address either point in detail, nor perhaps am I the person fit to do it. Suffice to say, many people in "weakened" local economies, who are now able to own businesses and trade with the world, would strongly disagree with the second point.

On the first, all I have to go on is the founding document and the founders' stated intentions. One committee member told the New York Times that its founding document ensures that it will be an "economic research institute without a particular ideology."

Though this document praises not only Friedman's technical work but also his promotion of market alternatives, it also makes clear that it:

will encourage the production of durable analyses that can withstand the highest level of scrutiny and be supported by the best modeling and most informative empirical evidence. While addressing important economic and social problems, it will provide the impetus for rigorous analyses in support of creative approaches to research.

If this indeed is the case - and here we must assume the founding documents will be binding - of what in the world are these 101 professors afraid? It certainly cannot be this proposal.

Labels: economics, ideology