They Never Walked Alone. Workshops, Conferences and Collaborations and the History of Virginia Political Economy

Virginia Political Economy (VPE), one of the main branches of Public Choice, is often if not always associated with the names of a few scholars, the leaders of a school in economics. It is particularly significant that these scholars never worked alone. At the University of Virginia, where it was born, then at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute or at George Mason University where it gained importance and visibility, Buchanan, Nutter, Tullock, Yeager and many others systematically worked in a collaborative way, through workshops, seminars, and conferences to develop their ideas. This is the story we tell in this paper, a simple story about persistence and collaboration as well as individual genius, and reflected in the continuous effort to develop and disseminate ideas through workshops, conferences, and publication initiatives. Beyond ideas and concepts, we believe that this also matters to understand the importance of VPE in economics