Vlad Tarko

Vlad Tarko is a 2026–2027 Visiting Faculty Fellow at The Murphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science at the University of Arizona. He is also the Director of Graduate Studies of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program.

Professor Tarko’s research encompasses a variety of themes, ranging from an economic model of how people choose their personal identities and undergo profound transformative experiences (“Role Models” forthcoming in Public Choice); the changing dynamic of status competitions in rich societies leading to the proliferation of conflicting groups (“Polycentric Status Contests”); a synthesis of the Buchanan-Wagner perspective on the biases in public finance, leading to inefficient levels of public debt (“The politics of public finance”).

He is currently in the process of finishing Understanding Capitalism: An Introduction to Political Economy (under contract with Polity Press), and The Allure of the Liberal Dictator (2 volumes of Cambridge Elements, under contract with Cambridge University Press), co-authored with Andrew Farrant. He is also co-editing The Elgar Companion to PPE (under contract with Elgar Publishing) with Chad Van Schoelandt.