The Hayek Lecture Series is sponsored by the Center for the History of Political Economy and an interdisciplinary certificate program called Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Duke University.
Learn more at hope.econ.duke.edu and dukeppe.trinity.duke.edu
Ransomware has grown to epidemic proportions, having a global cost of around $30-40 billion in 2023. In this Hayek Lecture, Professor Anja Shortland of King’s College London provides a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the relationship between crime and insurance. Professor Shortland highlights the complex ways in which insurance can both create and mitigate risk, as well as the important role that governments play in supporting insurance markets and protecting the public from crime. The lecture draws from three papers: “How Crime Shapes Insurance and Insurance Shapes Crime” (2023), “Insurance and Enterprise: Cyber Insurance for Ransomware” (2022), and “The Government behind Insurance Governance: Lessons for Ransomware” (2022), written with Tom Baker.
Anja Shortland, a Professor of Political Economy at Kings College London, studies private governance in the world’s trickiest markets: hostages, fine art, antiquities, and ransomware-and how people live, trade, and invest in complex and hostile territories. Although often based on data analysis, her work usually cuts across disciplinary boundaries, adopting techniques and insights from sociology, engineering, geography, politics, international relations and economics.