Walter Eucken Institut

A German liberal economic think tank located in Freiburg im Brisgau.

The Walter Eucken Institute was founded on 11th January 1954 in Freiburg im Breisgau, four years after the death of Walter Eucken, by a number of his friends and pupils. The Institute's creation was supported by Professor Dr. Ludwig Erhard, then Secretary of Economic Affairs. The Institute is privately structured as an independent registered society, with a board of directors, a committee of trustees and the general member meeting. From 1964 to 1970, Professor Friedrich A. von Hayek was a member of the board and from 1970 until his death he was Honorary President of the Institute. Presently, Professor James Buchanan is the Institute's Honorary President.

The Walter Eucken Institute is an independent economic research institution dealing with constitutional and institutional questions in economics and social sciences. The Institute puts a great emphasis on the solution of problems crucial for preserving and developing a free market order. By ways of lectures, conferences and publications, the Institute serves the goal of explaining the characteristics of a free economic and social order to the public, thus seeking to promote an understanding of economic and social phenomena.

The main task of the Institute in the future will be to work as a major centre for basic research on classical liberal ideas and their institutional realisation. Our work is inspired by a special emphasis on the connection between the Freiburg School of Law and Economics, founded by Walter Eucken and Franz Böhm with the evolutionary constitutionalism of Friedrich A. von Hayek and the constitutional political economy of James M. Buchanan. In addition, the ordoliberal research agenda tries to find answers for questions dealing with an international economic order as well as an economic constitution of the European Union.

Official website: http://www.walter-eucken-institut.de