Marc T. Law

I am a Professor of Economics at the University of Vermont, where I have been a faculty member since 2003. I am an applied microeconomist whose research is rooted in economic history. Much of my work focuses on the food and drugs regulation, occupational licensing, and the regulation of advertising during the Progressive Era. In recent years, I have turned my attention to cultural economics, especially the economics of classical music and creativity.

I am co-authoring a book with Karol J. Borowiecki (University of Southern Denmark), titled What Makes a Great Composer? A Data-Driven Exploration of Music History. The book is forthcoming with Princeton University Press in 2026 as part of the Economic History of the Western World series. Drawing on new data and an economic perspective, it offers a fresh, empirical take on the determinants of composer greatness over more than a thousand years of Western classical music.

My recent work includes papers on the gender gap among composers (European Economic Review), psychological capital and artistic careers (Journal of Cultural Economics), expert versus layperson evaluations in classical music competitions (Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization), creators (composers) as firms and the organization of creative production (Journal of Cultural Economics), the impact of testing standards on the supply of new teachers (forthcoming in the Journal of Human Resources), and dynasties and human capital transmission among composers (forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Growth). I am currently working on projects examining financial constraints and composers' creativity, peer effects in artistic production, and gender bias in evaluation among piano competition jurors

You can learn more about my work by visiting my CV, Google Scholar page, SSRN author page, ORCID page, or RePEc author page.