LATEST
Ed Conard Discusses his WSJ op-ed, “The Crippling Cost of 70% Tax Rates,” on Bill Martinez Live
Ed Conard discusses his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The Crippling Cost of 70% Tax Rates," and how unleashing the forces of capitalism drives innovation and middle-class prosperity, on Bill Martinez Live. Read More
Ed Conard Debates the Democrats’ Green New Deal on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast”
Ed Conard debates the long-term cost of the Democrats’ Green New Deal with Neil Cavuto on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast.” Read More
Ed Explains Why High Marginal Tax Rates Hurt the Middle Class with WSJ’s Paul Gigot on Fox News’s “Journal Editorial Report”
I explain why high marginal tax rates hurt the middle class with Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot on Fox News’s “Journal Editorial Report.” Read More
Ed Debates Liberal Darling of Davos on BBC’s Business Daily
I debate the liberal darling of Davos Rutger Bregman on the only true way to increase middle and working class incomes—by not stifling growth and innovation with high taxes. Read More
Ed Conard and Stuart Varney Try to Take the Green New Deal Seriously, But It Isn’t Easy
Stuart Varney and I try to take Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal seriously, but it isn’t easy. It would plunge the U.S. into deep recession, hurt middle-class workers and eventually lead to an economy with enormously high-cost energy and much slower growth. Read More
My Op-ed Today’s WSJ: Is the Tax Cut Paying For Itself? By a Mile.
Tax Reform Is Covering Its Costs Faster growth is on track to outpace debt in the next decade. Is the 2017 tax reform paying for itself? It’s a complicated question, but the critics have made up their minds. Outlets like the Tax Policy Center claim the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has diminished federal revenue rather than increase it as some supporters predicted. Other skeptics lament surging government deficits and debt. Some point to last year’s brief economic spurt as evidence of the law’s failure to drive long-term growth. Even… Read More
Ed Conard Explains Why Howard Schultz Isn’t Running as a Democrat on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast”
Ed Conard explains on Fox Business’s "Cavuto: Coast to Coast” why Howard Schultz is reluctant to run as a Democrat despite his innovation increasing the demand, and therefore the wages, of low-skilled workers, something we should all celebrate. Read More
Read My New National Review Op-Ed: “Let’s Not Kid Ourselves About 70% Tax Rates”
Let’s Not Kid Ourselves About 70% Tax Rates Their only justification is to confiscate others’ money. My op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal argued that academic justifications for 70 percent marginal tax rates, such as Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez’s, are nothing more than a veneer intended to deceive a wider audience that doesn’t know better. Saez’s expansion of his justification for confiscatory taxes in the New York Times does little to prove otherwise. Diamond and Saez’s original argument for a 70 percent tax rate – that it would enhance both tax revenue and social welfare – ignores the… Read More
Why High Marginal Taxes Hurt America’s Middle Class on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.”
Ed Conard joins Stuart Varney on Fox Business Network's “Varney & Co.” to discuss his latest Wall Street Journal op-ed "The Crippling Cost of 70% Tax Rates" and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's tax proposal. Read More- Read My New Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: “The Crippling Cost of 70% Tax Rates”
The Crippling Cost of 70% Tax Rates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal would smother investment and innovation, leaving America poorer. Newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent her first few weeks on Capitol Hill calling for a 70% top marginal income-tax rate, and suddenly the debate over optimal rates has reopened. To support her charge, some liberals are citing a 2011 study by economists Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez, which advocates for confiscatory upper-range tax rates. But a quick look at their analysis reveals grave caveats that only an advocate of higher taxes could… Read More 
Extraordinary Circumstances in 1950s Overwhelmed Economic Policy
Economists who claim fast growth in the 1950s (when the marginal tax rate was high and government spending was low) indicates high taxes and spending don’t slow growth are playing you for a sucker and shouldn’t be trusted. Extraordinary circumstances in the 1950s overwhelmed economic policy. From my book The Upside of Inequality: Even academics, on whom we depend for the truth, write papers with provocative conclusions intended to garner media attention based on simplifying assumptions overlooked by a time-pressed media and their audience. This is how Piketty and Saez… Read More
Corporate R&D Creates Knowledge Spillovers That Increase Entrepreneurial Activity
New research by Tania Babina and Sabrina Howell finds “a one standard deviation increase in R&D is associated with an 18.7 percent increase in entrepreneurial spawning”—employees leaving to start new firms. It also finds “the results are robust to including four-digit SIC code fixed effects, suggesting that narrow industries do not explain the result.” The authors claim that “for the parent firm, the spawning effect of R&D yields no obvious contractual benefits, nor is it observably costly.” They observe “that a remarkable 88 percent of spawns are located in the… Read More
Rising Median Household Income Dispels Commonly Repeated Misperception That Incomes Are No Longer Rising
Rising median household income dispels commonly repeated misperception (disingenuously citing peak to trough comparisons) that incomes are no longer rising. Read More
20-40% of Declining Workforce Participation from Prime Working-Age Men Dropping Out (for Less Than 2 Years) to Increase Their Leisure
New research finds: The rise of in-and-outs [men 25 to 54 years old who leave the workforce for 2 years or less] has [increased] steadily over time. … While in-and-outs only comprised 1.5% of the prime age male population in any given month in 1984, this share had risen to 2.9% by 2010. Given that there were nearly 62 million prime age men in the US in 2010, the increase in this share represents about 1 million additional men out of work at any point in time due to this… Read More
Evidence Indicates 75% of Business Pass-Through Income Is Owners’ Labor Income
Contrary to Thomas Piketty’s far-fetched claim that “[human capital] is far less consequential than one might imagine,” a new NBER paper finds “top earners are predominantly working rich,” mainly “undiversified working-age owners of midmarket firms in skill-intensive industries,” who “derive most of their income from human capital, not physical or financial capital,” and that, “Less than 13% of people in the 99.9th percentile derive most of their income from interest, rents, and other capital income.” “Match[ing] 83% of top 1% individuals born in 1980-1982 to their parents,” and “classif[ing] an… Read More
HIGHLIGHTS
Ed Conard on Fox & Friends: Why Millions Still Support Trump
Ed Conard joins Brian Kilmeade to discuss his op-ed "What Trump Critics Still Don't Get About Him" on "Fox & Friends." Watch the latest video at foxnews.com Read More
Read My New Fox News Op-Ed: What Trump Critics Still Don’t Get About Him
Edward Conard Fox News January 31, 2018 Democrats wasted no time continuing their nonstop attacks on President Trump after his State of the Union address Tuesday. They insist Donald Trump is the worst president in American history. While President Trump has left himself open to well-deserved criticism, many still don’t understand why he was elected and continues to retain the support of millions of Americans. Here’s why: President Trump shows concern for blue-collar Americans. Most Americans don’t have college degrees and big paychecks. They worry about factories and other businesses leaving… Read More
High-Skilled Immigration Only Viable Way to Finance Rising Entitlement Spending
Stanford Hoover Institute’s John Cogan shows that rising entitlement spending is the chief reason for runaway federal spending. His graph doesn’t show federal taxation, which has hovered around 17% of GDP since the end of the WWII and where it is expected land after the recent tax cut. By claiming only punishingly higher debt or taxes relative to GDP can finance growing entitlements, Cogan overlooks America’s only realistic antidote for growing entitlements—high-skilled immigration. My recently published WSJ op-ed lays out the case for high-skilled immigration as the only viable solution for financing growing entitlement spending. Tellingly, Cogan’s op-ed is juxtaposed… Read More
Upside of Inequality Highlights
The Upside of Inequality highlights: Read More
Carnegie’s Michael Pettis Praises The Upside of Inequality
Thanks, Michael Pettis, for praising my book The Upside of Inequality. "I finally got around to reading Ed's book, a little later than I said I would, but I have a huge reading list. Frankly I expected Upside would mostly be faith disguised as debate, but I was clearly wrong, and found the book to be very thoughtful and intelligently argued. I don't agree with all of it, obviously, but I do agree with much of it and, what is far more important, I agree with an approach that tries… Read More
Ed Conard Debates Grover Norquist on the Economics of the Republican Tax Plan
Ed Conard debates Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, on the economics of the Republican tax plan with Charles Payne on Fox Business News "Making Money." Read More- My New Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: America’s Got Talent, but Not Nearly Enough
In today's Wall Street Journal, I argue that high-skilled immigration is the only way America can meet the growing cost of retiring baby boomers without growth-killing tax increases that jeopardize America’s future in an increasingly dangerous world. Read the op-ed here and below. America’s Got Talent, but Not Nearly Enough Trump is right to back skills-based immigration. But fewer green cards would defeat the purpose. President Trump has proposed cutting the number of green cards issued each year from one million to 500,000 and issuing them based on skill levels. This approach… Read More 
Debating My Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
Ed Conard debates his Wall Street Journal op-ed, "America's Got Talent, But Not Nearly Enough," with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezezinski on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. Read More
More High-Skilled Immigration Good For Economy on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends”
Ed Conard joins Brian Kilmeade (the day of the solar eclipse) on Fox News Radio's "Kilmeade and Friends" to discuss why Trump is right to back skills-based immigration, but fewer green cards would defeat the purpose. Listen here. Read More
I Debate Austan Goolsbee on CNN: Does Trump Deserve Credit For Rising Stock Market?
Ed Conard debates Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, on whether President Trump has contributed to the rising stock market with Michael Smerconish on CNN's "Smerconish." Read More
Andy Puzder Reviews The Upside of Inequality
"Edward Conard’s The Upside of Inequality is one of those rare books. Conard refreshingly places the credit for economic prosperity where it belongs: On the willingness of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors to assume risk and on the availability of properly trained talent to turn risk into success..." Andy Puzder RealClearPolitics April 27, 2017 It’s a rare pleasure when a book on economic theory discusses how our economy actually works. Edward Conard’s The Upside of Inequality is one of those rare books. Conard refreshingly places the credit for economic prosperity where it… Read More
Trump’s First 100 Days, Bold Tax Cut Plan & More on Bloomberg TV’s “Daybreak Asia”
Ed Conard discusses President Trump's first 100 days, bold tax cut proposal, and more with Betty Liu on Bloomberg TV's "Daybreak Asia." Read More
The Case for a Border Tax on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Ed Conard debates tax reform and trade policy with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Kernen, and Becky Quick on CNBC's "Squawk Box." Read More
Scott Winship Reviews “The Upside of Inequality” on Real Clear Politics
"Ed Conard’s voice is a much-needed injection of fresh thinking..." Scott Winship RealClearPolitics February 18, 2017 On the day Facebook went public in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg made $2.3 billion from the exercise of his company stock options. That amount represented the difference between the cost to public investors for 60 million shares in the social media giant and what Zuckerberg had been given the right to pay as part of his compensation package in 2005. Later that year, Zuckerberg sold about half of those shares to pay taxes on the… Read More
Commentary Magazine Reviews The Upside of Inequality
"The Upside of Inequality is a well-written, thought-provoking book. It will be invaluable to anyone who wants a clear-eyed look at the country’s economic problems and their possible solutions." John Steele Gordon Commentary Magazine January 15, 2017 Liberals are always finding crises that must be addressed immediately through government action. A couple of years ago they declared a civil-rights jihad on behalf of the transgendered, a group so few in number that my three-year-old spellchecker doesn’t have the word in its dictionary. In economics, the increase in income and asset inequality… Read More