The group of thinkers based there developed what ultimately became know as the Chicago School of Economics.

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As interpreted by the important Chicago school of economics, faith in human rationality is closely linked to an ideology in which it is unnecessary and even immoral to protect people against their choices.

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"He almost single-handedly came up with the idea that the Fed should set benchmarks to target inflation, rather than tinker with the economy, " says Philip Reny, chair of the Chicago School of Economics.

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The business schools of Columbia, in New York, the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, Stanford in California and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, for example, have teamed up behind Cardean University, an early effort at an online institution for tertiary education.

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Mr. Murphy is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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"This is an industry where if you get your costs out of line and business is not so good, you're dead, " says Sam Peltzman, a University of Chicago business school economics professor who studies labor and the airline industry.

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The adage may hold in the financial markets, but when it comes to starting a business, it rings hollow, says Erik Hurst, a 33-year-old associate professor of economics at quant haven University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

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"This is an industry where if you get your costs out of line and business is not so good, you're dead, " says Sam Peltzman, an economics professor at the University of Chicago business school who studies labor and the airline industry.

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The theory builds on earlier approaches developed at the University of Chicago law school that sought to harmonize regulatory law with free-market economics.

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