#1. David Porter is leaving as of this fall, Stephen Rassenti and Bart Wilson leaving in a year. Kevin McCabe, Daniel Houser and Mark Olson are staying at GMU.

#2. GMU still wants to be able to claim Vernon Smith&#8217-s name, and it could well be that he will remain with some affiliation at George Mason University.

#3. The ICES folks have had a tenuous relationship at best with many members of the economics faculty (Robin Hanson being the most prominent exception) and similarly shaky relations with other folks elsewhere in the university. [Note: About half the ICES crew strongly preferred to work at the Arlington campus, several miles from the main (more distant in the suburbs) Fairfax campus, where most of the department is housed.]

#4. Daniele Struppa [a male professor] was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at GMU when ICES arrived. Daniele Struppa, it seems, always did his best to make good on the university&#8217-s side of the deal that brought ICES to GMU. Daniele Struppa being at Chapman University, and now Chancellor, no wonder these ICES guys are so comfortable heading off to suburban L.A.

#5. In any case, within 24 hours or so of Wagner&#8217-s email to students, the ICES folks had heard from people at companies, federal agencies, etc., whom they were working, all calling to say &#8220-so, I hear you are leaving&#8221-. The ICES folks had heard from friends/associates in Europe within a day or so asking for news about what is up. In effect, Wagner&#8217-s (premature) email to students became the press release announcing the moves (even if all the details were not yet arranged).

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NOTE: &#8220-ICES&#8221- as an entity was first established at GMU, but the six core faculty (Smith, Rassenti, Porter, McCabe, Houser, and Wilson) all arrived as a group from the University of Arizona, where they had all worked at the Economic Science Lab (which Smith led).

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UPDATE: Tom W. Bell&#8230-

Chapman is in Orange County–not “suburban L.A.”

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