Friends of Istituto Bruno Leoni is a non-profit organization based in the United States. Friends of IBL helps with the co-ordination of the fund-raising operations of Istituto Bruno Leoni in the United States and in the organization of the events and research efforts of the Institute.


Friends of IBL is managed by a 5-person Board of Trustees: James P. Lucier, Federico G.M. Mennella, Robert McDowell, Galeazzo Scarampi, and Pierluigi Zappacosta (Chairman)).


RSS Highlights

24 April 2020

The implementation of the lockdown, first in Northern Italy, then in the rest of the country, was accompanied by a range of measures which imposed, besides heavy costs and losses for businesses, significant limitations to individual liberty. At the same time, a sense of resignation, if not enthusiastic approbation appears to be spreading in the public opinion of the measures adopted by the national and local governments, even the most harsh and autoritharian. For this reason, among others, Istituto Bruno Leoni deemed important to keep making its voice in the defence of individual liberty and the free market to be heard, adapting its efforts to the new circumstances (for instance, organizing all its events as webinars and enhancing its online communication efforts). A brief overview of IBL’s efforts since the implementation of the ockdown, updated to April 18th, is available here


30 January 2020

Since 2008, IBL is mentioned in the “The Global ‘Go-To Think Tanks’” report, compiled by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the University of Pennsylvania, that evaluates more than 8,000 think tanks all over the world. In 2019, IBL was considered the 133th best think tank in the world. IBL was 110th in the non-US think tanks ranking, and the 76th most influential Western European organization (second in Italy, after IAI).


15 March 2020

Not a few Italian voices – not all on the nationalist/sovereignis fod – are arguing for Italy to quit the euro or to start printing some sort of “fiscal money.” This goal is argued on the basis successfully run a crowd-funding campaign to publish a new edition of Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States. The book, a classic in economic history and monetary economics, has long been unavailable in Italy and was only published in an abridged and inaccurate translation in 1979.

The new IBL edition will feature an Introduction by John Taylor, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and President of the Mont Pelerin Society. Despite the obstacles caused by the lockdown of virtualy all economic activity in Italy, the publication process is proceeding apace and we plan to have the book available to the Italian public in the Summer