1989-2009                                                       

The 20th anniversary of The Institute for Economic Studies - Europe  

20 ans déjà !....20 encore!

For that purpose, IES, a non profit organization registered in the state of Virginia,  uses or supports three different tools of teaching or of research. Every year we organize summer seminars somewhere in Europe, a summer university in Aix-en-Provence, France, and sponsors researchers or translations of major books.

Twenty years later most of those countries are part of the European Union and yet, the classical liberal message is far from being understood, in Paris as in Bucharest! If this shows that much work is still to be done, the seeds sowed by IES and similar educational institutes are nonetheless growing as witness the many classical liberal think tanks today led by former IES students.

IES exists thanks to the generosity of  donors and partners. For many years, we were lucky to have some faithful supporters whose contributions funded most of our efforts. Thank you for your support and rendez-vous dans 20 ans ! 

 The Summer University of the New Economics  

The Summer University in Aix-en-Provence has a long and illustrious history. The first meeting was held 32 years ago, and IES-Europe has been a partner since its creation in 1989.

For 32 years, the Summer universityof the New Economics has been the rendez-vous of liberal intellectuals from all over the world. This anniversary will be celebrated with the presence of celebrities of the scientific, political and business worlds.

“New Economics” was the name given by a handful of Professors of economics in the late 70s to their approach of social phenomena. They chose that name in order to stress their opposition to what was then the dominant approach: the centralized, macroeconomic regulation of the economy.

But they did not stop at criticizing the ongoing governmental policies; the goal of their meetings was also to share their efforts to reach a better understanding of those phenomena and consequently to suggest the appropriate reforms.

During our previous summer meetings we often noticed that the laymen, as well as legislators andeven sometime economists, hold a wrong understanding of the market and of competition. Hence we felt the need to explain to a larger audience the true working of the market: the market is a competitive entrepreneurial discovery process. But assuming competition is welcomed in the market field; does that mean that competition should prevail as well in the field of institutions?