Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Joseph Boudreaux (born 1958) is an American libertarian economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.^[1]

Early life and education

Boudreaux received a PhD in economics from Auburn University in 1986 with a thesis on "Contracting, Organization, and Monetary Instability: Studies in the Theory of the Firm." He received a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1992.^[2]

Academic career

Boudreaux was an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University from 1985 to 1989. He was an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Economics at Clemson University from 1992 to 1997, and President of the Foundation for Economic Education from 1997 to 2001. He is now Professor of Economics at George Mason University, where he served as chairman of the Economics Department from 2001 to 2009.

During the spring 1996 semester he was an Olin Visiting Fellow in Law and Economics at Cornell Law School.^[2] Boudreaux is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank.^[3]

Writings

He is the author of the 2007 book Globalization (Greenwood Guides to Business and Economics) and 2012 book Hypocrites and Half-Wits.^[4]

He contributes a column twice a month to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review^[5] and contributes to the Cafe Hayek blog.^[6]

Other activities

Boudreaux has lectured in the United States, Latin America, and Europe on topics including the nature of law, antitrust law and economics, and international trade.

He spoke at an Institute for Economic Studies seminar on Europe & Liberty in Deva, Romania, in 2007.^[7]

He spoke at the Freedom Summit in 2001 and 2010.^[8]

Views and opinions

Boudreaux has publicly criticized Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman, stating that Krugman frequently 'commits elementary errors' when discussing economics.^[9]

Boudreaux argued in October 2009 that insider trading "is impossible to police and helpful to markets and investors....Far from being so injurious to the economy that its practice must be criminalized, insiders buying and selling stocks based on their knowledge play a critical role in keeping asset prices honest—in keeping prices from lying to the public about corporate realities."^[10]

In a January 2013 article for the Wall Street Journal, Boudreaux and Mark Perry argued that the "progressive trope ... that America's middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s" is "spectacularly wrong."^[11] In a similar vein Boudreaux and Liya Palagashvili published an article in the Wall Street Journal in March 2014 discussing recent scholarship which shows that, contrary to what had been reported before by, wages have not decoupled from productivity in the US and Britain.^[12]

Books

• Globalization (Greenwood Guides to Business and Economics), 2007
• Hypocrites & Half-Wits: A Daily Dose of Sanity from Cafe Hayek, 2012
• The Essential Hayek, 2015 free on kindle

Op-eds

• "Working Overtime to Avoid the Truth," Wall Street Journal, 4/7/16.
• "The Myth of the Great Wages Decoupling," Wall Street Journal, 3/6/14.
• "The Myth of a Stagnant Middle Class," Wall Street Journal, 1/23/13.

References

External links

• Boudreaux's Columns
• Roberts, Russ. "Don Boudreaux Podcasts". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty. 
• Boudreaux, Donald J. (2008). "Comparative Advantage". In David R. Henderson (ed.). Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (2nd ed.). Indianapolis: Library of Economics and Liberty. ISBN 978-0865976658. OCLC 237794267. 
• A video of Boudreaux speaking about Constitutional Political Economy
• Boudreaux speaking on Collective Decision-making
• An Interview with Boudreaux on Civil Asset Forfeiture
• Donald J. Boudreaux at Goodreads