Research Interests for Timur Kuran

Research Interests:

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. His research focuses on (1) social change, including the evolution of preferences and institutions, and (2) the economic and political history and modernization of the Middle East. His current projects include a study of the role that the Middle East’s traditional institutions played in its poor political performance, as measured by democratization and human liberties. Among his publications are Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Harvard University Press); Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Princeton University Press); The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton University Press); and a tri-lingual edited work that consists of ten volumes, Socio-Economic Life in Seventeenth-century Istanbul: Glimpses from Court Records (İş Bank Publications). After graduating from Robert Academy in Istanbul in 1973, Kuran went on to study economics at Princeton University (AB 1977) and Stanford University (PhD 1982). Between 1982 and 2007 he taught at the University of Southern California. He was also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the John Olin Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, and a visiting professor of economics at Stanford University. He currently directs the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS); is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association; edits a book series for Cambridge University Press, serves on numerous editorial boards; and is a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. He has served on the World Economic Forum’s Arab World Council.

Keywords:
Civil society, Democracy, Development, Economic Development, Entrepreneurship, Government Programs, Hinduism, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 17th Century, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, History, Ancient, History, Medieval, India, Islam, Middle East, Partnership, Political development, Social Support, Social Welfare, Socioeconomic Factors, Waqf, Zakat
Representative Publications
  1. Kuran, T; Singh, A, Economic modernization in late British India: Hindu-Muslim differences, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 61 no. 3 (April, 2013), pp. 503-538, University of Chicago Press [doi[abs]
  2. Timur Kuran, , The Political Consequences of Islam’s Economic Legacy, edited by Ferrara, A; Kaul, V; Rasmussen, D, Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 39 no. 4-5 (2013), pp. in press, SAGE Publications, ISSN 0191-4537 [Gateway.cgi], [doi[abs]
  3. Kuran, T, Explaining the economic trajectories of civilizations: The systemic approach, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 71 no. 3 (September, 2009), pp. 593-605, Elsevier BV, ISSN 0167-2681 [doi[abs]
  4. Kuran, T; Sandholm, WH, Cultural integration and its discontents, Review of Economic Studies, vol. 75 no. 1 (January, 2008), pp. 201-228, Oxford University Press (OUP), ISSN 0034-6527 [doi[abs]
  5. Kuran, T, The absence of the corporation in Islamic law: Origins and persistence, American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 53 no. 4 (January, 2005), pp. 785-834, Oxford University Press (OUP), ISSN 0002-919X [repository], [doi[abs]
  6. Kuran, T, The logic of financial westernization in the Middle East, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 56 no. 4 SPEC. ISS. (January, 2005), pp. 593-615, Elsevier BV [doi[abs]
  7. Timur Kuran, Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (2004), Princeton University Press
  8. Kuran, T, The Islamic commercial crisis: Institutional roots of economic underdevelopment in the Middle East, Journal of Economic History, vol. 63 no. 2 (June, 2003), pp. 414-446, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [repository], [doi[abs]
  9. Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (1995), Harvard University Press
  10. Kuran, T, The long divergence: How Islamic law held back the Middle East (November, 2012), pp. 1-405, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691147567 [abs]
  11. Timur Kuran, (Ed.) Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında 17. Yüzyıl İstanbul’unda Sosyo-Ekonomik Yaşam / Social and Economic Life in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Glimpses from Court Records, Vols. 1-10 (2010-13), Istanbul: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları,