Dust off your ruby slippers and Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the 2025 Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Dinner. CEI’s annual gala honors Simon’s vision of mankind as the ultimate resource. This year, the dinner will be held at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, September 18, 2025.

6:00 p.m. Reception
7:15 p.m. Dinner
After party to follow

Cocktail or Themed Attire

Seating is limited. Kindly RSVP by Friday, September 5th.

For purposes of congressional ethics rules, this is a widely attended event. 

Hotel: The nearby Yours Truly DC Hotel offers CEI friends a 20% discount here.

Questions: Please contact [email protected] or (202) 331-2764.

Keynote Speaker

Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist andthe unparalleled advocate of free trade in the Americas. He is the president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru, which he founded in 1981. His accolades include the 2018 Julian L. Simon Memorial Award, Adam Smith Award, Hayek Medal, Freedom Prize, and being named one of fifteen innovators “who will reinvent your future” and the world’s most important living economist.

Simon Awardee

James R. Otteson is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics at the Mendoza College of Business at his alma mater, Notre Dame University. Known as the “Adam Smith professor,” Otteson has taught the morality of markets, honorable business practices, and the principles of a purpose-driven life. He has published and coauthored many explorations into Smith’s philosophy beginning with Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life in 2002 and including his forthcoming Human Dignity: Surprising Implications for Taking a Key Idea Seriously

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