Russell Roberts

Russell Roberts studied at University of Chicago and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is economics. Employment is recorded with George Mason University, University of California, Los Angeles and Washington University in St.

• Name — Russ Roberts • Born — 19 September 1954 • Birthplace — Memphis, Tennessee, US • Institution — Shalem College • Alma Mater — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BA) University of Chicago (PhD) • Doctoral Advisor — Gary Becker • Influences — Friedrich Hayek Milton Friedman Adam Smith • Url — http: www.russroberts.info/

Roberts was born on September 19, 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He then did doctoral studies in economics at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Gary Becker. He received a Ph.D. in 1981 with a dissertation on the design of government transfer programs.

Roberts has taught at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis (where he was the founding director of what is now the Center for Experiential Learning at the Olin Business School), the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a regular commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Roberts was appointed the third president of Shalem College in November 2020, a position he assumed in March 2021. In explaining the college's selection of Roberts, chair of the executive committee of Shalem's International Board of Governors Yair Shamir pointed to Roberts's American educational background as a deciding factor, as well as his outspoken belief in the necessity of a true liberal arts education today.

Roberts blogs at Cafe Hayek with Donald J. Boudreaux at George Mason University. Roberts has hosted the weekly economics podcast EconTalk since March 2006. The podcast is hosted by the Library of Economics and Liberty, an online library sponsored by Liberty Fund. On the podcast, Roberts has interviewed more than a dozen Nobel Prize laureates including Nobel Prize in Economics recipients Daron Acemoglu, Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman, Abhijit Banerjee, Gary Becker, and Joseph Stiglitz as well as Nobel Prize in Physics recipient Robert Laughlin. He has also interviewed people such as Patrick Collison, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Sam Harris and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Roberts describes himself as a classical liberal, stating, "I believe in limited government combined with personal responsibility. So I am something of a libertarian, but... that term comes with some baggage and some confusion." Roberts generally opposes Keynesian economics—particularly stimulus spending—saying that "it's very hard to argue in logical terms that spending money unwisely is the way to get wealthy." In October 2011 he initiated a lively, extended conversation with the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman over the effectiveness of Keynesian policies by declaring that "Krugman is a Keynesian because he wants bigger government. I'm an anti-Keynesian because I want smaller government." Krugman quoted this statement in his response and then said that "Keynesianism is not and never has been about promoting bigger government," and also that "you find conservative economists promoting quite Keynesian views of stabilization policy." In subsequent posts, the two economists disagreed on many things, but neither one contested one central idea: Krugman was content to be characterized as a Keynesian, while Roberts was not. Roberts has urged those who formulate public policy and the economists who advise them to be more skeptical of the findings of empirical studies, and he views ultra-specific claims by politicians that their promoted policies will produce a certain number of jobs or a certain amount of growth as inherently unreliable.

• Roberts, Russ. "Working Papers in Economics": Domestic Studies Program (Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace): • * • Also published as: • * • Also published as: * * * * * *

Russell Roberts is recorded as economist, writer, university teacher, podcaster and presenter.

Robert's books illustrate economic concepts in unconventional ways. In 2001, he published the novel The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, which conveys economic ideas through conversations between two fictional teachers at an exclusive high school in Washington, D.C.: one is a market oriented economics instructor, and the other is an English teacher who wants governmental protections that curb the excesses of unrestrained capitalism. In 2008, Roberts released another novel, The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity, which focuses on the experiences of Ramon Fernandez, a university student and star tennis player who, as a child, accompanied his mother to the U.S. after she fled from Fidel Castro's Cuba. Like The Invisible Heart, The Price of Everything uses conversations between its main characters to address economic concepts (in this case ideas such as the price system, spontaneous order and the possibility of price gouging in crisis situations). In 2014, Roberts offered an uncommon perspective on Adam Smith in his book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness. The book does not discuss Smith's well known 1776 work, The Wealth of Nations; it instead examines Smith's 1759 precursor to behavioral economics, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

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