George Mason University is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia. The university was originally founded in 1949 as a Northern Virginia regional branch of the University of Virginia. Named after Founding Father of the United States George Mason in 1959, it became an independent university in 1972. The school has since grown into the largest public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mason operates four campuses and one retreat-conference center in Virginia - in Fairfax, Arlington, Front Royal, Prince William, and Lorton respectively -, as well as a campus in Incheon, South Korea. The flagship campus is in Fairfax.
James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work, The Calculus of Consent, co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962. He continued to develop the theory, eventually receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization, and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute as well as of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.
Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law, which emerged primarily from scholars of the Chicago school of economics. Economic concepts are used to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be promulgated. There are two major branches of law and economics; one based on the application of the methods and theories of neoclassical economics to the positive and normative analysis of the law, and a second branch which focuses on an institutional analysis of law and legal institutions, with a broader focus on economic, political, and social outcomes, and overlapping with analyses of the institutions of politics and governance.
The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigler are considered the leading scholars of the Chicago school.
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is ranked among the best law schools in the world, and has many distinguished alumni in the judiciary, academia, government, politics and business. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time faculty and hosts more than 600 students in its Juris Doctor program, while also offering the Master of Laws, Master of Studies in Law and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees in law. The law school has the third highest percentage of recent graduates clerking for federal judges after Stanford Law School and Yale Law School.
Douglas Howard Ginsburg is an American jurist and academic who serves as a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that court in October 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, and served as its chief judge from 2001 until 2008. In October 1987, Reagan announced his intention to nominate Ginsburg as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, but withdrew his name from consideration before being formally nominated, after his earlier marijuana use created controversy.
George Joseph Stigler was an American economist. He was the 1982 laureate in Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is considered a key leader of the Chicago school of economics.
Gordon Tullock was an economist and professor of law and Economics at the George Mason University School of Law. He is best known for his work on public choice theory, the application of economic thinking to political issues. He was one of the founding figures in his field.
The Volokh Conspiracy is a legal blog co-founded in 2002 by law professor Eugene Volokh, covering legal and political issues from an ideological orientation it describes as "generally libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these." It is one of the most widely read and cited legal blogs in the United States. The blog is written by legal scholars and provides discussion on complex court decisions.
The Antonin Scalia Law School is the law school of George Mason University, a public research university in Virginia. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Washington, D.C., and 15 miles (24 km) east-northeast of George Mason University's main campus in Fairfax, Virginia.
Todd Joseph Zywicki is an American lawyer, legal scholar and educator. He is a George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, teaching in the areas of bankruptcy and contracts.
Henry G. Manne was an American writer and academic, considered a founder of the law and economics discipline. He was Dean Emeritus of the George Mason University School of Law.
Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that Minnesota's suspension of creditors' remedies was not in violation of the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution. Blaisdell was decided during the depth of the Great Depression and has been criticized by modern conservative and libertarian commentators.
Richard Allen Posner is an American legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, Posner is a leading figure in the field of law and economics, and was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential legal scholars in the United States.
The George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal is a law review run by students at the George Mason University School of Law. It published one or two issues each academic year from 1990 to 2006–2007, and three issues each year since then. The journal is published by William S. Hein & Co.
Francis "Frank" Herbert Buckley is a foundation professor at George Mason University School of Law where he has taught since 1989. Before then he was a visiting Olin fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He has also taught at Panthéon-Assas University, Sciences Po in Paris and the McGill Faculty of Law in Montreal. He practiced law for three years in Toronto.
Joshua Daniel Wright is an American economist and legal scholar who served as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 2013 to 2015. He has been a professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School since 2004, and is the executive director of its Global Antitrust Institute. At the time of his nomination, Wright was the fourth economist to serve as a commissioner of the FTC.
Dan L. Burk is Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and is a founding member of the law faculty. His areas of expertise include intellectual property, gene patenting, digital copyright, electronic commerce and computer trespass.
William Franklin Shughart II is an American economist who is the J. Fish Smith Professor in Public Choice at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. He is research director and senior fellow at The Independent Institute. He is the editor-in-chief of Public Choice, senior associate editor of the Southern Economic Journal and associate editor of the Independent Review.
