Virgil Storr

Virgil Storr

  • Senior Research Fellow
  • Director of Graduate Student Programs, Mercatus Center
  • Senior Fellow at the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Virgil Storr is a senior research fellow and director of Graduate Student Programs at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Prior to joining the Mercatus Center, he was the Don C. Lavoie Research Fellow in the Program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Department of Economics, George Mason University.

Dr. Storr's 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 writings in political economy have been published or are forthcoming in The Cambridge Journal of Economics, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The Review of Austrian Economics, and several other scholarly publications.

Dr. Storr received his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University and his B.A. from Beloit College. Born and raised in the Bahamas, Dr. Storr now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife Nona Martin. His personal web page may be found at http://virgilstorr.org/.

Published Research

Virgil Storr, Stefanie Haeffele-Balch | Sep 01, 2012
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on 29 August 2005, leaving a great deal of destruction, pain, and uncertainty in its wake. Post-disaster community rebound is a collective action problem where every individual’s decision to rebuild is impacted by the likelihood that others in the community will rebuild.
Virgil Storr, | Mar 01, 2012
In The Art of Not Being Governed (2009), Scott revises the state generated narratives of the hill people of Zomia which describes them as an aboriginal population that have simply failed to become more civilized. As an alternative, Scott views hill peoples as state-repelling societies or even anti-state societies. As we suggest in this article, by at least implicitly employing a rational choice framework, Scott is able to make sense why people would attempt to avoid being state subjects by taking to the hills as well as why their descendants have remained in the hills.
Emily Chamlee-Wright, Virgil Storr | Oct 2011
This article examines the relationship between social capital and lobbying in New Orleans’s post-Katrina recovery.
Virgil Storr, | Feb 2011
In this article, the authors offer a defense of the hypothesis that ‘institutions matter’ for economic growth.

Working Papers

Emily Chamlee-Wright, Virgil Storr | Jan 2011
This article examines the relationship between social capital and rent seeking in the post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans.
Virgil Storr, Stefanie Haeffele-Balch | Apr 05, 2010
Using data from interviews with affected residents and community leaders in New Orleans after Katrina, this article explores the effectiveness of private disaster recovery efforts and whether or not…
Virgil Storr | Nov 2009
Inspired by Berger and Luckmann’s work The Social Construction of Reality, this paper describes the social construction of the market, specifically focusing on the Austrian understanding of the…
Emily Chamlee-Wright, Virgil Storr | Oct 2008
This paper investigates the “sense of place” that residents in Ninth Ward New Orleans neighborhoo