Virgil Henry Storr is a Senior Research Fellow and the Senior Director of Academic and Student Programs at the Mercatus Center, a Research Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, George Mason University and the Don C. Lavoie Senior Fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Mercatus Center, George Mason University. He holds a Ph. D. in Economics from George Mason University (Fairfax, Va.) and did his undergraduate work at Beloit College (Beloit, Wis.).

Virgil’s first book on the Bahamas’ economic culture, Enterprising Slaves & Master Pirates, was published by Peter Lang. In it, he argues that two ideal typical entrepreneurs dominate the economic life in the Bahamas: the enterprising slave (encouraging Bahamian businessmen to work hard, to be creative and to be productive) and the master pirate (demonstrating how success is more easily attained through cunning and deception).  His Understanding the Culture of Markets, published by Routledge, explores how culture shapes economic activity and describes how social scientists (especially economists) should incorporate considerations of culture into their analysis. His book with Palgrave Macmillan,  Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster: Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship (with Stefanie Haeffele-Balch and Laura E. Grube), argues that entrepreneurs promote community recovery after disasters by providing necessary goods and services, restoring and replacing disrupted social networks, and signaling that community rebound is likely and, in fact, underway.

His writings in political economy have been published or are forthcoming in Small Business Economics, Public Choice, Rationality & Society, the Journal of Urban Affairs, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, the Review of Austrian Economics and several other scholarly publications.

Prior to joining Mercatus/GMU, Virgil was the Chief Information Officer for TSD Communications, a communications strategy firm specializing in crisis communications, speechwriting, media training and communications technology.

Born and raised in the Bahamas, Virgil now lives in Manassas, VA, with his wife Nona Martin Storr and his daughter Winifred.

This talk is free & open to all. Pizza will be provided.