Eric Alston

Eric Alston is a Scholar in Residence in the Finance Division and the Faculty Director of the Hernando de Soto Capital Markets Program in the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder. He also serves as a Research Associate with the Comparative Constitutions Project. Alston received his MA in Economics from the University of Maryland and his JD from the University of Chicago. His research and teaching is centered in the fields of law and economics and institutional and organizational analysis, which he applies to research questions in the development of rights along frontiers, the design and implementation of constitutions, and questions of legal/institutional transitions more generally.

Alston’s publications include constitutional design studies and archival historical research into development of property rights in the frontier US West. His current work examines the impact of railroad lands grants on irrigation development, the national characteristics that determine constitutional definition of subnational government, and the development of blockchain governance mechanisms in light of their similarities to constitutional amendment processes.

Alston’s outreach and service activities include educational materials, instructional workshops, and comparative expertise to constitutional drafting processes and peace negotiations worldwide, working with organizations like International IDEA and the International Development Law Organization.