About Us
Surprisingly Free is the online home of the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The Program works within the university setting to improve the state of knowledge and debate about the regulation of the Internet and high technology. It does this through rigorous economic and legal research, academic conferences, and outreach to policy makers.
At Surprisingly Free you will find articles from Mercatus Center scholars and guest bloggers, as well as aggregated posts from academics around the web that we reblog with permission or pursuant to Creative Commons licensing. You can also listen to and subscribe to our weekly audio podcast, Surprisingly Free Conversations. Hosted by Jerry Brito, the show features in-depth one-on-one discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, professors, entrepreneurs, and other thinkers and doers at the intersection of technology, policy, and economics.
About the Mercatus Center
Economics is everywhere. It’s at the gas pump, in foreign aid, in the fluctuation of currency values. Economics is not just graphs and charts. It’s real-world knowledge about the decisions people make and the effects of those decisions.
Incentives affect the choices people make. Some basic social and political structures facilitate prosperity. These are some of the core economic concepts that policy makers must understand to be effective. Unfortunately, a gap often exists between economic understanding and real-world decision making. Policy decisions miss their targets and create unintended and sometimes harmful consequences.
For over 25 years, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University has sought to bridge this gap. Mercatus applies scholarly research to the problems facing policy makers. Bringing together a network of scholars and experts from around the globe, the Mercatus Center provides policy makers with the economic tools to make sense of today’s most pressing issues. Mercatus turns ideas into action.
The Mercatus Center is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
Every week we bring you in-depth interviews with leading thinkers and entrepreneurs from the world of technology. The most recent episode features 