Peter Boettke from The Austrian Economists: "It is with great pleasure that I announce that Dan D'Amico successfully defended his dissertation on Tuesday April 22, 2008. Dan is a deep thinker and committed Austrian economist and radical libertarian social thinker. His dissertation addressed the 'imprisoner dilemma'. D'Amico uses economic analysis (market process theory and public choice analysis) to examine and adjudicate the debates in criminal justice. Should our criminal justice system focus on rehabilitation, retribution, or restitution? D'Amico argues that while the literature seems to have settled on proportionality, the political production of criminal justice services fails to live up to that standard.
D'Amico also argues that market provision of criminal justice will comparatively speaking outperform state controlled systems. For his outstanding dissertation work, Dan has also won the Israel M. Kirzner Award for the Outstanding Dissertation in Austrian Economics at GMU. Congratulations to Dan.
In addition to being an economist full of penetrating insights, Dan is an outstanding teacher. We will not only be reading and learning from Dan's scholarship for the next few decades, but I imagine the Austrian community will have D'Amico students running around for years to come. Dan will join with Walter Block at Loyola University of New Orleans next fall and form one of the most promising dynamic duos in the economic teaching ranks..."
