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Dr. Edward Nik-Khah

Professor

Location:
107 Francis T. West Hall
Phone:
(540)375-4938
Edward Nik-Khah is Professor of Economics at Roanoke College. He has been a Research Fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University and at the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University. He is the author of The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information (Oxford University Press, 2017), written with Philip Mirowski and Markets: In Search of Media (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), written with Armin Beverungen, Philip Mirowski and Jens Schroter. His previously completed research has addressed such topics as the history of information, the political economy of science, neoliberalism, and market design; for his work on market design, the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy awarded him the K. William Kapp Prize. His current research explores the historical development of a platform-oriented “tech economics” and the rollout of platforms into precision medicine. 

Degrees

  • PhD, University of Notre Dame (Economics)
  • MA, University of Notre Dame (Economics)
  • BA, Rockhurst University (Economics, Philosophy, Political Science)

Research & Teaching Interests

  • Market Design
  • Information
  • Platforms
  • History of Economics
  • Science and Technology Studies
  • Pharmaceutical Studies

Books

  • 2017. The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information: The History of Information in Modern Economics. (with Philip Mirowski) Oxford University Press.
  • 2017. Symposium on the Contributions of Business to Economics. (ed., with Robert Van Horn).
  • 2019. In Search of Media: Markets. (with Armin Beverungen, Philip Mirowski, and Jens Schröter) University of Minnesota Press/Meson Press.

Publications

  • 2006. “What the FCC Auctions Can Tell Us about the Performativity Thesis,” European Economic Sociology Newsletter 7(2): 15-21.
  • 2007. “Markets Made Flesh: Performativity, and a Problem in Science Studies, augmented with Consideration of the FCC Auctions” (with Philip Mirowski), pp. 190-224 in Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa, and Lucia Siu, eds. Princeton University Press.
  • 2008. “A Tale of Two Auctions,” Journal of Institutional Economics 4(1): 73-97. [Winner of the 2009 European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy’s K. William Kapp Prize]
  • 2008. “Command Performance: Exploring what STS thinks it takes to build a market” (with Philip Mirowski), pp. 89-128 in Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies, Trevor Pinch and Richard Swedberg, eds. MIT Press.
  • 2010. “George J. Stigler,” pp. 337-341 in The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics, Ross Emmett, ed. Elgar.
  • 2011. “Chicago Neoliberalism and the Genesis of the Milton Friedman Institute (2006-2009),” pp. 368-388 in Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program, Robert Van Horn, Philip Mirowski, and Tom Stapleford, eds. Cambridge University Press.
  • 2011. “George Stigler, the Graduate School of Business, and the Pillars of the Chicago School,” pp. 116-147 in Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program, Robert Van Horn, Philip Mirowski, and Tom Stapleford, eds. Cambridge University Press.
  • 2012. “Inland Empire: Economics Imperialism as an Imperative of Chicago Neoliberalism” (with Robert Van Horn). Journal of Economic Methodology 19(3): 251-274.
  • 2013. “Private Intellectuals and Public Perplexity: The Economics Profession and the Economic Crisis” (with Philip Mirowski). History of Political Economy 45(Supplement) The Economist as Public Intellectual, Tiago Mata and Steven Medema, eds.: 279-311.
  • 2014. “Neoliberal Pharmaceutical Science and the Chicago School of Economics.” Social Studies of Science 44(4): 489-517.
  • 2014. “‘Power to the People’: A Reply to Healy, Mangin, and Applbaum.” Social Studies of Science 44(4): 524-530.
  • 2016. “The Ascendancy of Chicago Neoliberalism” (with Robert Van Horn), pp. 27-38 in The Handbook of Neoliberalism, Simon Springer, Kean Birch, and Julie MacLeavy, eds. Routledge.
  • 2016. “The Role of the Cowles Commission in the History of Information Economics” (with Philip Mirowski). Studia Metodologiczne 36: 59-85.
  • 2017. “The ‘Marketplace of Ideas’ and the Centrality of Science to Neoliberalism,” pp. 32-42 in the Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, David Tyfield, Rebecca Lave, Samuel Randalls, and Charles Thorpe, eds. Routledge.
  • 2017. “Introduction to the Symposium on the Contributions of Business to Economics.” (With Robert Van Horn) History of Political Economy 49(2): 165-176.
  • 2018. “Planning the ‘Free’ Market: The Genesis and Rise of Chicago Neoliberalism.” (With Robert Van Horn), pp. 98-112 in the SAGE Handbook of Neoliberalism, Damien Cahill, Martijn Konings, Melinda Cooper, and David Primrose, eds. SAGE.
  • 2018. “Neoliberalism on Drugs: Genomics and the Political Economy of Medicine,” pp. 90-98 in the Routledge Handbook of Genomics, Health & Society, Sahra Gibbon, Barbara Prainsack, Stephen Hilgartner, and Janelle Lamoreaux, eds. Routledge.
  • 2019. “On Going the Market One Better: Economic Market Design and the Contradictions of Building Markets for Public Purposes” (with Philip Mirowski). Economy and Society 48(2): 268-294.
  • 2020. “Shattering Hope and Building Empire: Economics the Imperial Science at Chicago, George Stigler and Aaron Director” (with Robert Van Horn), pp. 421-443 in George Stigler: Enigmatic Price Theorist of the Twentieth Century, Craig Freedman, ed. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • 2020. “On Skinning a Cat: George Stigler on the Marketplace of Ideas,” pp. 46-69 in Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian, and Philip Mirowski, eds. Verso.
  • 2022. “Information at Chicago,” pp. 123-148 in The Palgrave Handbook to Chicago Economics, Robert Cord, ed. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • 2023. "“The Closed Market: Platform Design and the Computerization of Economics.” Œconomia – History/Methodology/Philosophy 13(3): 877-905.
  • 2023. “RARG Against the Machine.” (Review of Elizabeth Popp Berman’s Thinking Like an Economist). Œconomia – History/Methodology/Philosophy 13(3): 921-939.

Research Honors and Awards

  • Research Fellow, Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University
  • Research Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University
  • K. William Kapp Prize for the best article, European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy
  • Roanoke Faculty Scholar Award
  • Roanoke Faculty Research Year Award

Teaching Honors and Awards

  • Instructor, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute in the History of Economics
  • Instructor, Summer Institute in the History of Economics, Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University
  • Three-time award winner, Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Notre Dame
  • Three-time award winner, Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame