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Faculty & Staff

Areas of Expertise

Philosophy of Economics, Economic Methodology, History of Economic Thought

Degrees

PhD, Harvard University

Professional Publications & Contributions

• "Why Quantitative Social Science Needs Interpretive Methods," Qualitative Methods, Vol.4, No.2, Fall 2006, pp.2-9.
• 
  “The Taming of Institutions in Economics: The Rise and Methodology of the New, New Institutionalism” (with second author William Milberg), Journal of Institutional Economics, 5(3): 289-313.
• 
  "The Unbearable Lightness of the Economics-Made-Fun Genre," Journal of Economics Methodology 19(3): 283-301.

Additional Information

Peter Spiegler has been an assistant professor of economics at Umass Boston since 2007. His work lies at the intersection of economics, intellectual history and the philosophy of science, dealing specifically with the tensions and challenges involved in the mathematical analysis of social phenomena. Peter has presented his work at numerous conferences, workshops and seminars both within the US and internationally. His recent work includes “The Taming of Institutions in Economics: The rise and methodology of the new, new institutional economics” (with William Milberg of the New School for Social Research), “The Unbearable Lightness of the Economics-Made-Fun Genre” (a critique of the Freakonomics genre, presented at the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics, Rotterdam, Netherlands) and “A Critique of Economic Analyses of Terrorism.”

Peter Spiegler was recently awarded a grant from the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) to support the completion of his book project A Constructive Critique of Economic Modeling. INET was formed in October of 2009 to support and foster innovative thinking in economics. Its advisory board includes five economics Nobel laureates.

View Professor Spiegler's curriculum vitae.