The Academic Entrepreneurship of James Buchanan at Virginia Tech

This article discusses James Buchanan’s academic entrepreneurship in sometimes-hostile environments. It examines Buchanan’s view of the appropriate role of mathematics in his 1964 address “What Should Economists Do?” as it was challenged within the Economics Department at Virginia Tech by Dan Orr. It traces the mathematical/philosophical tension between Buchanan and Orr through the experience of Dwight Lee and graduate students at Virginia Tech. It discusses the entrepreneurial role played by Wade Gilley in moving Buchanan from Virginia Tech to George Mason University to capture institutional externalities produced by Buchanan’s eventual Nobel Prize and the lasting effects of Buchanan’s academic entrepreneurship at George Mason University.