Rate My Professor Peter Boettke

Peter Boettke is a Distinguished University Professor of Economics in the Business & Economics faculty at George Mason University. He holds the BB&T Professorship for the Study of Capitalism and serves as Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. Boettke received his B.A. in Economics from Grove City College in 1983 with high honors, M.A. in Economics from George Mason University in 1987, and Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 1989, with a thesis titled The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism, 1918-1928. His academic career spans positions as Assistant Professor at Oakland University (1988-1990) and New York University (1990-1997), Associate Professor at Manhattan College (1997-1998) and George Mason University (1998-2003), Professor at George Mason University (2003-2007), and University Professor since 2007, later elevated to Distinguished University Professor. He has held visiting appointments at the Hoover Institution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems, Stockholm School of Economics, and Central European University.

Boettke specializes in Austrian economics, with research interests encompassing institutional economics, comparative economics, the socialist calculation debate, and transitional political economy. His major publications include The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: The Formative Years, 1918-1928 (1990), Why Perestroika Failed: The Politics and Economics of Socialist Transformation (1993), Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy (2001), and co-authorship of The Economic Way of Thinking (12th edition, 2009). He edited seminal works such as Socialism and the Market: The Socialist Calculation Debate Revisited (9 volumes, 2000), The Legacy of F.A. Hayek: Politics, Philosophy, Economics (3 volumes, 1999), and Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics (2010). Serving as Editor-in-Chief of The Review of Austrian Economics since 1998, he previously led the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics and held presidencies of the Southern Economics Association (2015-2017) and Mont Pelerin Society (2016-2018). Boettke's honors include George Mason University Faculty Member of the Year (2009), Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education (2010), Charles Koch Distinguished Alumnus (2005), Golden Dozen Teaching Award from New York University (1995), and the Public Choice Society's James M. Buchanan Distinguished Fellow Award (2025), along with honorary doctorates from Universidad Francisco Marroquin (2012) and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (2013).