Summer schools
On-Site
Full Time
Regular fees: 250 EUR
International Fees : 250 EUR
We expect to accommodate a maximum of seventy participants at the school. Interested participants should apply by filling the registration form. The deadline for applying to the school is April 17th, 2026. Acceptance decisions will be communicated by April 24th, 2026 (non EU-citizens who may need to apply for VISA can contact us if they need an earlier answer).
To ensure effective participation, and to guarantee that the available seats will actually be filled, the school requires a registration fee of 250 euros. However, we are pleased to announce the availability of several scholarships that will guarantee exemption from the tuition for selected applicants .
OPEN
SUMMER SCHOOL
Villa Mondragone, Rome - June, 17th-19th, 2026
“Professor Hayek does not see, or will not admit, that a return to free competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State”, George Orwell: “A Review of The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek”, Observer, April 9th 1944.
“It seems to be nothing more than simple and obvious wisdom to compare social institutions as they might be expected actually to operate rather than to compare romantic models of how such institutions might be hoped to operate. [...] The socialist mystique to the effect that the state, that politics, somehow works its way toward some transcendent “public good” is with us yet, in many guises, as we must surely acknowledge”, James Buchanan: “Politics without romance: a sketch of positive public choice theory and its normative implications”, Physica, 1979.
Property occupies a surprisingly marginal position in contemporary economic theory, despite its foundational importance to market economies. In traditional neoclassical approaches, property rights are typically assumed rather than analyzed—they constitute part of the background institutional framework that enables exchange, but are rarely treated as objects of inquiry themselves. The price mechanism and market equilibrium take center stage, while the legal and social arrangements that determine who owns what, and what ownership entails, remain largely invisible.
A notable exception is the incomplete contracts literature, which explicitly examines how the allocation of ownership rights affects final allocations. Here, property becomes analytically central: ownership is understood as conferring residual control rights over assets, and the optimal assignment of these rights emerges as a crucial determinant of organizational boundaries and economic outcomes. Yet even this strand of research treats property primarily through the lens of efficiency and incentive alignment, leaving broader questions about the legitimacy, justice, and social meaning of property largely unaddressed.
Beyond economics, property remains a vibrant topic across the social sciences and political philosophy, where a wider range of normative and analytical frameworks come into play. Legal scholars examine how property rights are constructed, enforced, and contested, while sociologists and anthropologists explore the cultural meanings and social practices surrounding ownership in different contexts. In contemporary political philosophy, debates continue between libertarian approaches that treat property rights as natural or pre-political entitlements, liberal egalitarian perspectives that subject property to principles of distributive justice, and traditions that emphasize property's role in enabling domination or fostering solidarity.
This summer school aims to bridge these diverse disciplinary perspectives, bringing together insights from economic theory, legal analysis, history, and political philosophy to develop a richer, more multidimensional understanding of property as both an economic institution and a site of normative contestation.
c/o Villa Mondragone
00078 Monte Porzio Catone , Italie
