Academics
Faculty may submit proposals to the ACLG Foundation through the prescribed channels. Upon receipt of proposals which have gone through the needed vetting by the campus, the Academy will seek comments from its academic review panel prior to making a final decision about funding.
The Academy provided funding to the professors noted below on the basis of faculty proposals for their work with their courses. A brief synopsis of those courses follows:
Professor William Kline
LIS 360 Radical Capitalism
Liberal and Integrative Studies (on-line)
University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS)
There are those who advocate the benefit of market economics and then there are radicals for capitalism. From privatizing the police to abolishing the Federal Reserve, radical capitalist thinkers and their followers argue that markets are more efficient and morally superior than government. This class examines the philosophical ideas and social movement spawned by these thinkers, especially debates within radical capitalist theory and the divisions this has created. The works of Hayek, Von Mises, Zozick, Rand and Rothbard will figure centrally in this course. Issues critically examined with ths course include the ligitimacy of government, the nature of the market, the morality of selfishness, conflicts between utility and rights, and the private provision of what are typically considered government services.
- Meeting Time: Spring/Fall 2010
- Syllabus: TBA
- Enrollment detail: TBA
Professor Glenn Hoetker
Central Governments and Local Enterprise in Peripheral Communities
(Course # to be assigned)
Summary
Barra is a small island of just over 1,000 people in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides (www.isleofbarra.com/). Although rich in human and natural resources including fishing and renewable energy, Barra is heavily dependent on public expenditure and faces high unemployment and a declining population. The primary cause is the stifling of local enterprise by the central government in Edinburgh.
Academy funding will support two related activities in Barra, which will expose Illinois students to the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in peripheral communities like Barra; support the Barra community in developing an effective political and economic response to the challenge; and develop a robust research program with implications far beyond Barra. Faculty and supporters include Ian MacNeil, emeritus professor of Law at Northwestern University and current Chief of Clan MacNeil of Barra, and Reform Scotland, one of Scotland’s leading free market think tanks.
Research
Two streams of research flow easily from Barra’s situation. The most obvious centers around the interaction between the Barra community and the central government. Questions in this stream include the economic impact of the regulation and processes driving both the creation and modification of specific regulatory regimes at the local, national and European level. Additionally, Barra’s situation is pertinent to broader thinking about the basic principles of relational contract. Barra’s case is that of microeconomic doldrums caused not at all by scarcity of the ordinary inputs into economic production, including the knowledge about how to put them together, but the macroeconomic political situation with which it is saddled. Relational contract writ large to encompass a wide political context.
Professor Jon Solomon
CLCV 225: Greco-Roman Democracies, Economic Policies, & Cultures
This interdisciplinary course examines the interrelationships between the democracies, economic policies, and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. We begin with ancient Greece and examine the political and economic forces which produced the creation of Athenian radical democracy. This democracy featured magistrates elected annually, an assembly chosen by lot, the leadership of which changed daily, and an assembly with a quorum of thousands. We will follow its progress through periods of domestic prosperity and crisis, and in political climates which include the successful expansion of the Athenian empire, the domestic stress caused by the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and her allies, and the decline of Athenian hegemony. We will trace this process into the period of Macedonian domination. We will do this primarily by studying primary sources, including epic, lyric, dramatic, and comic poetry, historical and philosophical prose, and such visual arts as architecture and sculpture.
- Meeting time and place: TBA
- Class syllabus: TBA
Professor Dirk Harkbarth
FIN 321: Advanced Corporate Finance
Support for guest lecturer, Achim Gutschera, investigator and lawyer, who will speak on "Management & Monitoring of International Project Finance at the World Bank." Students will gain special insight into the difficulties of the project management and review period after adoption at an international corporate finance level. This lecture will complement course material that deals with problems arising through project completion (or termination). In particular, the lecture will cover:
- Financing, procurement and implementation of contracts in WB funded projects
- Monitoring of the different project stages (contract enforcement, moral hazard issues)
- Fraud, corruption and other malpractices in the projects including common red flag indicators
- Challenges and issues WB and World Bank's Integrity Vice Presidency (INTVP) faces in the crisis.
Professors George J. Krueger and Dennis Beard
FIN 423: Financing Emerging Businesses
In FIN 423, students view the business world through the lens of an entrepreneur, discuss the role small businesses play as an engine for economic growth and how government regulation affects small business owners. Students discover how entrepreneurs identify opportunities in a free market economy and gain an understanding of alternative sources of capital for a new venture. This class applies the theory learned in other classes to the real world of emerging businesses. The support of The Academy for Capitalism and Limited Government helps us bring in guest speakers to expose students to the perspective of practitioners. The feedback from our students tells us that they consider this an incredibly valuable part of the course.
Professor Andrew Morriss
LAW 1L: Property Class
Funding to bring Wallace Kaufman, author of “Coming Out of the Woods,” a book read in my 1L Property class, to campus to speak to the class in the spring 2010 semester. Kaufman began his career as an English professor at the University of North Carolina. To enable himself to be able to live in the woods, Kaufman became one of the first environmental property developers, creating the community of Saralyn outside Chapel Hill using private land covenants to protect the environment while providing home sites to those desiring a different lifestyle. Since then, he has become an advisor to USAID on property rights working in Central Asia and a builder in the Pacific Northwest. Kaufman’s memoir of his experiences demonstrates the power of property law to enable people to fulfill diverse life goals. His frank discussion of the successes and failures of Saralyn teach valuable lessons about the power and limits of the law.
Professor Andrew Morriss
LAW 794: International Business Transactions: Hong Kong and Macau
This course was offered in January 2009 and took 28 students to what has long been one of the world's freest economies, Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macua where the casino industry has recently grown larger than Las Vegas. While in the two Special Administrative Regions of China, the 28 law students in the course heard from a wide range of speakers including The Economist's Asia Business editor, lawyers and finance specialists and two of the founders of the Lion Rock Institute, a think tank devoted to preserving Hong Kong's free market economy. They learned how Hong Kong has used its long tradition of the rule of law to develop its international business sector serving as the gateway to China for many Western businesses. While in Macau, the students toured the MGM Grand and Wynn casinos with the general counsel of the casino's Asia operations learning how gambling is regulated differently in China than the United States.
Professor Andrew Morriss
LAW 794: Internation Business Organizations: The Cayman Islands
This course will be taught in Spring 2010 and will offer University of Illinois law, finance, accounting and business students an opportunity to learn how to structure offshore financial transactions in asset securitization, captive insurance and hedge funds through meetings with lawyers, business people, accountants, and government officials in the United States and the Cayman Islands. (Cayman is the world's fifth largest financial center by banking volume, second largest domicile of captive insurance companies serving the US market and the largest domicile of hedge funds.) Students have a unique opportunity to learn how to structure transactions, learn about important public policy issues involving international financial transactions and develop business contacts for their careers. By learning how international business transactions operate, students will have the opportunity to see how markets can reduce costs through competition. For example, many charitable hospitals in the United States handle their insurance needs through Caymanian captives reducing operating costs and increasing their ability to serve their missions. Investment funds in Cayman route billions of dollars of capital into the U.S. economy providing the means for businesses to expand. Moreover, Cayman's success in international finance is itself an important story — from a virtual barter economy in the 1950s, Cayman developed into a leading financial center with a per capita GDP larger than Britain's, its former colonial power, through a focus on developing markets for financial services.