On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke and Liya Palagashvili reflect on her journey from undergraduate student organizer to public intellectual, policy analyst, and Director of the Labor Policy Project. They discuss how Liya has approached her career with a startup mindset — exploring her work on the gig economy and portable benefits to create more dynamic and resilient labor markets. Along the way, they reflect on the importance of mentorship, “failing fast,” and the tension between holding a strong vision while remaining open to new evidence.

Dr. Liya Palagashvili is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Labor Policy Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship. Her research focuses on labor regulations, the gig economy, and the changing nature of work. She regularly writes for her Substack, Labor Market Matters.

**This episode was recorded on March 31, 2026**

Show Notes:

Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (Grove Press, 2001)

Casey B. Mulligan, The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy (Oxford University Press, 2014)

Edited by Richard A. Epstein, Mario J. Rizzo, and Liya Palagashvili, The Routledge Handbook of Classical Liberalism (Routledge, 2026)

Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Scribner, 2016)

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