Professor Kuran has written extensively on the evolution of preferences and institutions, with contributions to the study of hidden preferences, the unpredictability of social revolutions, the dynamics of ethnic conflict, perceptions of discrimination, and the evolution of morality. His Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification introduces the notion of preference falsification and deals with the repercussions of being dishonest about what one knows and wants. Since its original publication in 1995, this book has appeared also in German, Swedish, Turkish, and Chinese. Kuran has also written on Islam and the Middle East, with an initial focus on contemporary attempts to restructure economies according to Islamic teachings. Several of his essays on this topic are included in Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism, which has been translated into Turkish and Arabic. Since the mid-1990s he has turned his attention to the conundrum of why the Middle East, which once had a high standard of living by global standards, subsequently fell behind in various realms, including economic production, organizational capability, technological creativity, democratization, and military strength. His thesis is that the economic and educational institutions of Islam, though well-suited to the era in which they emerged, were poorly suited to a dynamic industrial economy. These institutions fostered social equilibria that reduced the likelihood of modern capitalism emerging from within Islamic civilization. His recent articles have identified obstacles involving inheritance practices, contract law, procedures of the courts, the absence of corporations, the financial system, and the delivery of social services. From 1990 to 2008 Kuran served as editor of an interdisciplinary book series published by the University of Michigan Press. This series was re-established at Cambridge University Press in 2009 under the title Cambridge Studies in Economics, Cognition and Society. He has served, or currently serves, on the editorial or advisory boards of numerous scholarly journals. He taught at University of Southern California between 1982 and 2007, where he held the King Faisal professorship in Islamic thought and culture from 1993 onwards. From 2005 to 2007, he was Director of USC's Institute for Economic Research on Civilizations, which he founded. In 1989–90 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; in 1996–97 he held the John Olin visiting professorship at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; and in 2004–05 he was visiting professor of economics at Stanford University. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association.
Research
''Private Truth, Public Lies''
His book "Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification" was firstly published in 1995, coining the concept of preference falsification. The book consists of a number of papers published by Kuran on the themes of the concept.
''The Long Divergence''
In 2011, Kuran published "The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East" summarizing his arguments on the institutional roots of the Middle East's economic stagnation. Reviews include: "The Crescent and the Company," by Schumpeter in the Economist; "Is Islam the Problem?" by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times; "The Long Divergence," by Ziauddin Sardar in the Independent; "Prophet Motive," by John Cassidy in the New Yorker; "Selling Out the Koran," by Chris Berg in the National Times of Australia; "Long Divergence," by L. Carl Brown in Foreign Affairs; "What Made the Middle East Fall Behind the West?," by Şahin Alpay in Today's Zaman; Kai Ryssdal's radio interview on Marketplace: "Historical Roots of Middle Eastern Uprisings." An essay summarizing key arguments: "Legal Roots of Economic Underdevelopment in the Middle East", European Financial Review : 10–11. Peter Passell provides a review and long excerpt in the Milken Institute Review, 13 : 59–76.
Personal life
Timur Kuran's father is Aptullah Kuran; a late scholar of Ottoman Architecture and the founding president of Boğaziçi University. He has Turkish and American citizenships.
Main publications
;Books
Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında 17. Yüzyıl İstanbul'unda Sosyo-Ekonomik Yaşam / Social and Economic Life in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Glimpses from Court Records, 10 vols. .
