Donald J. Boudreaux is a Associate Senior Research Fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research and affiliated with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Mercatus Center Board Member; and a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University. He is the author of the books The Essential Hayek, Globalization, Hypocrites and Half-Wits, and his articles appear in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News & World Report as well as numerous scholarly journals. He writes a blog called Cafe Hayek and a regular column on economics for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Boudreaux earned a PhD in economics from Auburn University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.
“There is no plausible case to be made that for us Americans to improve our comparative advantages we need government to protect us from foreign competition.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Unlike market participants guided by prices, politicians and administrators literally have no reliable information to guide them. They will therefore be guided exclusively by their own biases and hunches.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Only a very wealthy society can afford to devote so much human ingenuity and effort to the careful production of packaging materials that are promptly discarded, in most cases, without a thought after a single use.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Theorizing usefully about trade and other economic phenomena isn’t especially difficult, but doing so does indeed require care, wisdom, and humility.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Among the most satisfying of my professional duties as an economics educator is communicating, mostly by email, with students from around the country, and sometimes from abroad, about economics and liberalism.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Free trade does indeed enrich the world. But it also, and chiefly, enriches the people of each country that practices it, regardless of the policies pursued elsewhere.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Once the reality of a libido for the superficial is admitted, many phenomena are better understood. For example, it’s easy to understand, and excuse, intellectually unengaged people falling for protectionist fables.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“We don’t obtain resources from an existing stock created for us by nature, leaving fewer resources available for use tomorrow each time we withdraw some amount for our use today. Instead, resources are ultimately fruits of the human mind and effort.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Income, corporation, and capital-gains taxes are taxes on the general welfare. Also harmful to the public welfare are protective tariffs and similar restrictions on how people may peacefully spend their own money.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
“Attempts to hold lockdowners personally accountable by imposing on them formal punishments would create yet another terrible precedent, one that would only compound the troubles that we’re destined to suffer from the precedent that was set in March 2020.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux