The Mont Pelerin Society recently concluded its 2016 meetings in Miami, Florida where the organization’s 2016-2018 Board of Directors was chosen by its members. At the meetings Peter J. Boettke, Vice President and Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, was elected as president of the Mont Pelerin Society.

The Mont Pelerin Society was founded in 1947 by Nobel Laureate in Economics F. A. Hayek “to facilitate an exchange of ideas between like-minded scholars in the hope of strengthening the principles and practice of a free society and to study the workings, virtues, and defects of market-oriented economic systems.” Hayek served as president of the society from 1947 to 1961. His ideas are at the core of the F. A. Hayek Program’s research, particularly his emphasis on methodological individualism, institutions, and the competitive market process as one of discovery and creativity.

James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate in Economics and former distinguished professor emeritus of economics at George Mason University, also served as president of the Mont Pelerin Society from 1984 to 1986. Buchanan’s work has also had a lasting influence on the Hayek Program in fostering a broad research and educational vision that seeks to embrace both political economy and social philosophy.

Upon being elected, Boettke commented that he is “very honored and humbled to follow in the footsteps of the former presidents of MPS, including Hayek who served in that capacity from 1947-61, but also [his] professor James Buchanan who served as MPS president from 1984-86.”

Boettke is an alumnus of George Mason University and the Mercatus PhD Fellowship as well as the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism and a University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University. He has authored and coauthored 11 books, including his most recent, Living Economics, and is editor of the Review of Austrian Economics, series editor of the New Thinking in Political Economy book series, and co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society book series. He also serves as President-Elect and Program Chair of the Southern Economic Association for the 2015-16 academic year.

Read more about Peter J. Boettke.

Read more about the Mont Pelerin Society.