The Koch network built the Mercatus Center into a leading neoliberal policy think tank.

Evidence

The precursor to Mercatus at George Mason dates back to the early 1980s, when Richard Fink was on the economics faculty at GMU. Fink was also highly connected to the many firms and foundations associated with Charles and David Koch, the infamous billionaire funders at the center of many neoliberal organizations, including Cato. Koch funded Fink’s Center for Market Processes at GMU, which was transformed into the Mercatus Center by the later 1990s, after Fink became vice-president of Koch Industries. Although GMU was nominally a state university, Mercatus was targeted by the Russian doll to become the premier one-stop shop for hard neoliberal economics in the nation’s capital. For instance, in 2001, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave GMU 3 million to hire the neoliberal Nobel economist and MPS member Vernon Smith; although that did not work out as planned, Koch gave another 2.5 million to Mercatus in 2009. Public sources suggest Mercatus has benefited to the tune of $30 million from Koch over the last two decades. Its general director is Tyler Cowen, another neoliberal we have already encountered. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 643

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mirowski’s Russian doll concept of networked neoliberal organizations, and to Tyler Cowen as a recurring actor in the thought collective.