I am an associate professor of economics at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where I have been for 20 years. Though originally in public finance and labor, I gradually moved into history of economic thought. My recent particular interest from a Catholic perspective is not at the moral but at the behavioral, human functioning level, i.e. the view of the human person in economic thought, especially of the capacities of free will, reason, ability to act on information, creativity, etc.
At the Mount, I am the director of the BB&T Center for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Capitalism. Despite its title, the main focus of the center is on the question of how different views of the human condition have affected theory in economics and business, as well as political and economic ideologies. I am currently extending that to support faculty in other disciplines at the university to take a similar type of approach: exploring how assumptions about human nature matter in their area. We recently started a course, jointly taught, on human nature and the social sciences.
Finally, I am currently working on a book on that theme: how the distinctive academic contribution of Christian universities is clarity about human action, and how to arrange the curriculum to support that. While many Catholic universities offer moral reflection on economics or other social questions, very few actually do much to explore the assumptions about human nature embedded in the human sciences and what differences that makes for theories, methods, or applications. I would be happy to work or talk with any other economists interested in that work.
I was a government major as an undergraduate. I worked for the Massachusetts state legislator as a tax policy analyst for several years before getting a Masters in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. Greater exposure to economics there attracted me away from government and into academia. I got my degree in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2000, and have taught at the Mount ever since.
From a personal perspective, I am married, and the father of five children. My oldest two currently attend the Mount, which has provided a wonderful opportunity to be present and involved as my children mature intellectually. I’ve been involved in campus ministry and church related activities since college. Perhaps most formative was at the UW-Madison Catholic Student Center, where we worked to establish a more personal discipleship-oriented ministry.
Contact: larrivee@msmary.edu