See photos from the workshop
March 15-16, 2024
About the Workshop
This workshop brings together scholars from various disciplines who work on foundational normative questions related to markets.
Markets arise and operate through law – not just through public regulation but also through private law regimes (in property, contract, and tort) that create entitlements, enforce market exchanges, and limit expropriation. The operation of markets also reflects and reinforces a set of social norms – e.g., atomism, competition, douceur, etc.—and these too bear no necessary connection to market activity. Thus, any particular market architecture is not inevitable, but rather the result of a complex set of choices and developments.
The contingent, constructed nature of the legal rules and social norms that guide the market – or, maybe, markets (since different markets may be differently designed) – implies that the legal and social infrastructure of the market can, and indeed should, be normatively evaluated. The purpose of this interdisciplinary workshop on The Normative Foundations of the Market is to critically investigate the normative underpinnings that can, should, or in fact do underlie the operation of the market (or of a specific market, such as the labor market or the housing market).
This workshop is co-organized with Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Program
Friday, March 15, 2024
8:30 am: Gather
8:45 am: Opening remarks
9:00 am – 9:50 am: Session 1
Presenter: David Grewal, “The Wealth of Nations Problem”
Commentator: Rebecca Stone
9:50 am – 10:10 am: Break
10:10 am – 11:00 am: Session 2
Presenter: Brookes Brown, “If you owe me when I do it for free, why can’t I send you a bill? Fairness in interpersonal and commercial exchange”
Commentator: Ayelet Shachar
11:00 am – 11:20 am: Break
11:20 am – 12:10 pm: Session 3
Presenter: Robert Taylor, “Commercial Republicanism”
Commentator: Mikhail Xifaras
12:10 pm – 1:10 pm: Lunch
1:10 pm – 2:15 pm: Session 4
Presenter: Colin Mayer, “Capitalism and Crises: The Role of Law”
Commentators: Mehrsa Baradaran and Avihay Dorfman
2:15 pm – 2:35 pm: Break
2:35 pm – 3:25 pm: Session 5
Presenter: Tsilly Dagan, “The State and the Market – A Parable: On the State’s Commodifying Effects”
Commentator: Johanna Stark
3:25 pm – 3:45 pm: Break
3:45 pm – 4:35 pm: Session 6
Presenter: Manisha Padi, “Redistribution Through Financial Regulation”
Commentator: Daniel Markovits
Saturday, March 16, 2024
9:00 am – 9:30 am: Gather
9:30 am – 10:20 am: Session 8
Presenter:
Nien-hê Hsieh, “Dignity and Ownership”
Commentator: Tom Christiano
10:20 am – 10:40 am: Break
10:40 am – 11:30 am: Session 9
Presenter: Nicolas Cornell, “Ownership and the Ecological Community”
Commentator: Julie Rose
11:30 am – 11:50 am: Break
11:50 am – 12:40 pm: Session 10
Presenter: Amy Sepinwall, “The Supposed Freedom Not To Speak, in the Marketplace and Beyond”
Commentator: Chris Kutz
12:40 pm – 1:40 pm: Lunch
Participants
Dhammika Dharmapala (Berkeley)
Prasad Krishnamurthy (Berkeley)
Veronica Aoki Santarosa (Berkeley)
Johanna Stark (Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance)
Papers
(link to password-protected page)