Courses Offered

Offered Fall 2025.

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and theories of political economy including trade-offs, incentives, transaction costs, prisoners' dilemmas, collective action, public goods, externalities, principal-agent problems, property rights, tragedy of the commons, rational choice theory, and systems of government and governance. As a pedagogical framing mechanism, students are asked to imagine that they are stranded on a deserted island and must think about building a functioning economy and system of governance. To do this, they will need to gain knowledge of how humans (themselves and others) make choices that affect the production and distribution of resources in society.

Unlike your typical Econ 101 course that is filled with equations and graphs that students must memorize (and rarely understand), we seek to build an intuitive understanding of how an economy operates and the role that governance plays in creating prosperity. This is achieved by reading about pirates, cowboys, conflicts over sunshine, prisoner of war camps, justice systems that employ toxic poison to determine guilt or innocence, tipping at restaurants, gift-giving, why communal refrigerators stink, and why no one ever finishes the last morsel of donuts at business meetings. My teaching style is inspired by Prof. Paul Heyne who lead one of the most popular economic courses at the UW until his death in 2000. I aspire to carry on that tradition with dynamic lectures that draw upon the economic style of Steven Landsburg, Peter Leeson, Michael Munger, and others. My lectures are known for high energy, humor, and awesome bumper music. 

Textbooks include Harold Winter's Trade-Offs (Vol. 3), Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook, Anderson & Hill's The Not So Wild, Wild West, and Michael Munger's Tomorrow 3.0. There are also a number of articles assigned including Peter Leeson's "Sassywood," F.A. Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society," R.A. Radford's "The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp," and Gill & Thomas's "The Dynamic Efficiency of Gifting." There will be roughly 90 pages of reading per week assigned and students are expected to stay on top of those readings. Students will be strongly encouraged to purchase physical copies of the textbooks instead of online versions. 

Grading for the course will consist of three in-class essay exams, an online syllabus quiz, weekly assignments that probe the course readings, and discussion section participation. While I am known to be a difficult grader according to online reviews, this class is easy to pass and do well in if one actually does the readings, attends lectures, and participates actively in section. Seriously. My grading system that converts percentages into the 4.0 GPA scale is more forgiving than most other UW social science classes making it more difficult to fail (i.e., the floor for passing is lower), but students expecting to receive an A will need to do the readings, possibly rereading difficult passages, and attend lectures. This seems like a simple task (and it is), but many students often take shortcuts thinking they will do well only to find out that this is a poor strategy. It has been my experience that students either do very well in this course or completely fail. 

Each year, and for every course I teach, I create some general theme that tangentially fits the course content but helps to create a stylistic framework. This frequently includes a class poster. (View past posters here.) The theme for Fall 2025 will be the classic British television program The Prisoner, one of my favorite television series. Known for its quirky themes, mysterious plot lines, and completely confusing ending, this show generates a fun scaffolding for thinking about being stranded on an island and having to think your way through problems and puzzles.

Offered Winter 2026.

Description coming soon.

Offered Winter 2026.

This course is not what you think it is at first glance - i.e., people in hoodies running around causing chaos in Portland. Rather, it is about how human societies govern themselves without recourse to a formal government. We explore themes related to the use of cultural norms and rituals to coordinate human behavior, the importance of community relations, and generalized reciprocity. In addition to examining whether anarchy can be a stand-alone system of social organization, we also consider whether anarchist forms of governance can exist alongside established states.

Readings include selections from "anarcho-communists" (e.g., Kropotkin, Taylor, Scott), as well as "anarcho-capitalists" (e.g., Leeson, Stringham, Hasnas).* Student evaluation will be weighted heavily towards class discussion, thus this is not a class for shy people. Shy individuals are welcomed to take the course as a way of developing their public speaking skills, but if you do not participate, you will not receive a passing grade. There will also be two take-home essays that will be graded like you've probably never been graded before. If you are not paralyzed by criticism and truly seek to become a better reader, writer, and thinker, this is the class for you. 

*It should be noted that I consider the terms "communism" and "capitalism" (or any other word with an -ism) to be utterly worthless in understanding human society. Instead of broad-based, vague concepts, I prefer micro-level understandings of how humans behave and respond to incentives under a variety of different legal and non-legal constraints. 

Offered Fall 2025.

Graduate course. Information coming soon.