134: Edward Castronova on the Economy of Virtual Worlds

Edward Castronova is professor of Telecommunication and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. He pioneered the study of how money,value, and property flow inside online games like Everquest

Castronova’s paper Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier became the most downloaded paper in the entire database — beating out works by dozens of Nobel laureates.

Books by Professor Castronova: 

• Wildcat Currency: How the Virtual Money Revolution Is Transforming the Economy
• Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality
• Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games

Papers:

• Castronova, Edward (2008). A Test of the Law of Demand in a Virtual World: Exploring the Petri Dish Approach to Social Science. CESifo Working Papers.
• Castronova, Edward (2001). Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier, CESifo Working Paper No. 618, December.
• Castronova, Edward (2002). On Virtual Economies, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 752, July.
• Castronova, Edward (2003). The Price of ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthethic World, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 957, June.

Games:

• Everquest
• Kingdom Come
• World of Warcraft
• Fortnite Battle Royale
• Imperial
• Serious Games: A movement in education 

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