Guilds ruled many crafts and trades from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, and have always attracted debate and controversy. They were sometimes viewed as efficient institutions that guaranteed quality and skills. But they also excluded competitors, manipulated markets, and blocked innovations. Did the benefits of guilds outweigh their costs? Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie of Cambridge University discusses her new book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis.

Emotions trigger many human actions, notably in conflictual situations. In this talk, Professor Jon Elster (Columbia) will first consider models of emotional choice versus rational choice, and then consider selected episodes from 18th century French and American political history to argue for the crucial importance of emotions of anger fear, and enthusiasm.

In this public lecture, Professor Herbert Gintis explores the competing roles of consequentialist and moral reasoning in democratic choice. Herbert Gintis is an American economist, behavioral scientist, and educator known for his theoretical contributions to sociobiology, especially altruism, cooperation, epistemic game theory, gene-culture coevolution, efficiency wages, strong reciprocity, and human capital theory.

In this public lecture, Professor Barry Weingast explores Adam Smith’s theory of organised religion and the breakdown of the medieval church’s monopoly in the reformation. Barry Weingast is the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor of political science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.