In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest. For at least five millennia people have been borrowing and lending at interest. In the ancient world, high interest was generally viewed as exploitative, a potential path to debt bondage and slavery. Yet as capitalism became established from the late Middle Ages onwards, interest became viewed as a necessary reward for lenders to part with their capital. Interest is often described as the “price of money.” But, according to a seminal new book by Edward Chancellor, it is better called the “price of time”: time is scarce, time has value, and interest is the time value of money.
This fall semester, the Philosophy of Finance project will explore this pathbreaking volume, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest. Published by the Atlantic Monthly, it was longlisted for the 2022 Financial Times Business Book of the Year and was the 2023 Winner of the Hayek Prize. We are currently accepting applications for the Fall Philosophy of Finance Fellowship cohort, a small group of undergraduate and graduate student fellows interested in the fundamental questions raised by the practice of finance. They will participate in four seminar-style discussion sessions this semester that will lead them to reflect on the history of interest and its essential function in determining how capital is allocated and priced. More broadly they will help map the new field of the Philosophy of Finance and consider its implications for whether / how the practice of finance can be integrated with a good life.
Sessions will be facilitated by Dr. Matthew O’Brien, the President and Chief Investment Officer of O’Brien Greene & Co., an investment management firm outside Philadelphia. He received his A.B. in Philosophy at Princeton University and his M.A./Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin and serves on the Executive Committee of the American Philosophical Association as well as on the Board of the Collegium Institute.
Dates: Fridays, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm.
September 13
September 27
October 11
October 25
Application Deadline: September 2, 2024 (admitted students will receive a free hardcopy of the book)
Please direct any questions to Esther Lee (estmlee@sas.upenn.edu).
Fellows
