Robert E. Wright

Robert E. Wright is the (co)author or (co)editor of over two dozen major books, book series, and edited collections, including AIER’s The Best of Thomas Paine (2021) and Financial Exclusion (2019). He has also (co)authored numerous articles for important journals, including the American Economic ReviewBusiness History ReviewIndependent ReviewJournal of Private EnterpriseReview of Finance, and Southern Economic Review. Robert has taught business, economics, and policy courses at Augustana University, NYU’s Stern School of Business, Temple University, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere since taking his Ph.D. in History from SUNY Buffalo in 1997. Robert E. Wright was formerly a Senior Research Faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research.

Find Robert

  1. SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=362640
  2. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3792-3506
  3. Academia: https://robertwright.academia.edu/
  4. Google: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=D9Qsx6QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra
  5. Twitter, Gettr, and Parler: @robertewright
  • Politicized Name Calling and the Dehumanization of Difference

    “The election of 2020 caused a big ruckus for nothing. We went into the election with a mean, old elephantine POTUS and came out of it with a mean, old asinine one. Both espouse policies that are, frankly, rather Australopithecine in nature.” ~ Robert E. Wright

    Politicized Name Calling and the Dehumanization of Difference
  • Another Bungled CDC Study on Restaurants and Masks

    “The CDC is now citing a new study that shows that Covid ‘case’ and death rates were lower in US counties with mask mandates and higher where on-site dining was allowed. The study is flawed because it doesn’t account for seasonality, position along the epi curve, the age or morbidity structure of the population, or…

    Another Bungled CDC Study on Restaurants and Masks
  • How Did the Life Insurance Industry Survive the Pandemic?

    “It is of course a good thing that life insurers did not exacerbate the financial stresses brought on by the pandemic or its mitigation policies, which did indeed turn out to be the worst since the New Deal as I suggested in April 2020. ‘Tis a shame that nobody followed my suggestion, made that same…

    How Did the Life Insurance Industry Survive the Pandemic?
  • Paternalism Remains Public Enemy Numero Uno

    “So much easier, it is, to use the coercive power of the state to fund pet projects than to convince numerous individuals to give of their own accord! But take it from one who knows, paternalism most often leads to toil and trouble. Cancel not, lest ye be cancelled; he who summons the demons of…

    Paternalism Remains Public Enemy Numero Uno
  • The Covid Crucible

    “Constant repetition of the bizarre and obviously untrue mantra that policymakers are ‘following the science’ and not basing Covid policy on the 21st-century equivalent of spectral evidence suggests that Miller was on to something fundamental. So watch or read The Crucible until the crucible of Covid repression spurs a new literary treatment of the dangers…

    The Covid Crucible
  • The Sin Tax Paradox

    “It is time to jettison the notion of taxing sin and think hard again about the LBT advocated by Milton Friedman and Henry George, a tax on the unimproved value of land. It’s a tax, and hence bad, but it’s less distortionary than taxing income or sin and it doesn’t have to be high if…

    The Sin Tax Paradox
  • This Is the Way

    “If politicians cannot follow a code on their own, they are more unpredictably dangerous than any drug robber or Mandalorian following a strict code with consequences. The American people need to find a way to impose a binding code on politicians because ‘this is the way’ to a more prosperous future for all.” ~ Robert…

    This Is the Way
  • Acknowledge This!

    “The NGC sees land acknowledgments as the first step toward ‘returning land’ but that cannot happen in any significant way because its market value has been vastly augmented over the centuries. To seize it, or even to impose a ground rent, would be an unconstitutional taking and an unconstitutional ex post law if there were…

    Acknowledge This!
  • Elites Gone Wild

    “With an approval rating that is already abysmally low, Congress may have calculated that keeping its members alive is more important than keeping America’s democratic traditions alive. This is, after all, an age where no death can be tolerated, even if saving one person from something salient, like Covid-19, means another must die from a…

    Elites Gone Wild
  • A Pandemic of Ignorance

    “Putting the lessons of political economy together (especially along with some elementary knowledge of statistical tricks) would have allowed Americans to better assess policymakers’ claims about Covid-19 transmission and the best ways to mitigate it and hence peacefully to resist unprecedented policies of dubious constitutionality and little scientific merit.” ~ Robert E. Wright

    A Pandemic of Ignorance