Ed Snider Center Receives Grant for Julian Simon Forum

The Ed Snider Center is pleased to announce that it has received a three-year grant from the Kauffman Foundation to support the Julian Simon Forum.

The Simon Forum is a digital research and media project that allows scholars to articulate philosophical positions, tie these to economic issues, and “bet” on the outcome. Julian Simon, former faculty member at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, is best known for his famous ten year bet with Paul Ehrlich, a fierce critic of growth and a champion of the view that the Earth was reaching its growth limit. As told by The Economist in its obituary of Mr. Simon, he challenged Ehrlich to the ten-year bet 1980. In Simon’s view of humans as builders and innovators, if a natural resource became scarce humans would invent a solution to the problem. In Erlich’s view, the Earth’s resources were running out and would become more costly over time. The bet focused on the prices of five metals:  copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten. As Simon predicted, over ten years all fell in price.

“Humans are, on net balance, builders rather than destroyers.” - Julian Simon

In the spirit of the Simon-Erlich bet, the Snider Center is creating an online discussion forum to facilitate reasoned and respectful discourse around critical issues identified through polls and outreach to experts all over the world. By encouraging debate and discourse, the Center hopes to further a better understanding of key issues that pertain to the vibrancy and dynamism of an entrepreneurial economy.

- Amanda Yard, B.S. Supply Chain Management, Class of 2016