“…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
Read Former White House CEA Chairman Kevin Hassett’s Interview of Ed Conard in National Review In National Review, Kevin Hassett, the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, asks Ed Conard to defend conservative free market capitalism and how it promotes entrepreneurial risk-taking that has grown middle-class incomes faster than Europe. Five Questions for Ed Conard National Review Online August 21, 2020 1) Many liberals claim capitalism no longer works for the middle and working class. Is it true? No. According to the Congressional Budget Office, prior to the pandemic, middle-class incomes had grown 60 percent more than inflation since 1980. The income of the poorest… Read More
My Oxford University Press Chapter, “The Economics of Inequality in High-Wage Economies,” Is Available Free Online Oxford University Press has provided free online access to my chapter, “The Economics of Inequality in High-Wage Economies,” for a limited time in their new book “United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality.” In the chapter, I argue, “Inequality is mostly the result of an increasing premium on returns from risk and high-skilled labor ushered in by technological disruption and the feedback loop of elite talent working to increase their own productivity—a logical outcome when properly trained talent constrains growth. The answer … lies in increasing the ratio of high-… Read More
Ed Conard Debates Poverty and Inequality at Susquehanna University Ed Conard debunks myths about poverty and debates the ways U.S. policymakers can maximize middle and working- class incomes with Washington University in St. Louis's Professor of Social Welfare Mark Rank. The discussion was moderated by Matt Rousu, Dean of Susquehanna University’s Sigmund Weis School of Business and students. Read More
Ed Conard Discusses His Oxford University Chapter at Harvard’s Program on Constitutional Government Ed Conard recently joined Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield to discuss his Oxford University Press chapter, “The Economics of Inequality in High-Wage Economies,” at Harvard University’s Program on Constitutional Government. The video, audio, and text of his speech and the Q&A session are available below. Opening Speech AUDIO Q&A PART 1 AUDIO Q&A PART 2 AUDIO 14 Questions for Ed Conard Tom Palmer (Snr. Fellow, Cato Institute): Do we have the ability to recruit high-skilled labor from around the world? Can we identify and restrict immigration only to them? What happens to… Read More
Praise for my Oxford University Press chapter, “The Economics of Inequality” San Antonio Express columnist Michael Taylor praised my chapter, “The Economics of Inequality,” in Oxford University Press’ new “United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality.” "In Chapter 10, Edward Conard makes the case for what I think of as the Mitt Romney — or previously orthodox Republican — view of economic policy. If we are unequal, Conard asks, what explains it? Is it unfair crony capitalism? Or is it from innovation and gains to productivity? Conard firmly believes it’s the latter. Conard argues it would be reckless to attack or… Read More
My chapter, “The Economics of Inequality,” joins Saez, Burkhauser, and other distinguished economists in Oxford University Press’ new “United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality” In my chapter, “Economics of Inequality in High-Wage Economies," I argue, “Inequality is mostly the result of an increasing premium on returns from risk and high-skilled labor ushered in by technological disruption and the feedback loop of elite talent working to increase their own productivity—a logical outcome when properly trained talent constrains growth. The answer … lies in increasing the ratio of high- to low-skilled workers chiefly by training and recruiting more high-scoring domestic and immigrant workers. Rather than greater income redistribution slowing growth by dampening high-skilled productivity and incentives… Read More
Waking Up to a Misleading Inequality Report on the Sunday Morning News If these reporters had winning arguments, they wouldn’t resort to misleading their audiences. Last week, I was briefly featured in one of the major networks’ Sunday morning news programs. The main thrust of the segment was the argument that Americans aren’t doing their fair share to help families who lost their jobs during the pandemic despite a recently published report by the Brookings Institute showing, “government policy effectively countered [the pandemic’s] effects on incomes, leading poverty to fall and low percentiles of income to rise across a range of demographic… Read More
CBS Sunday Morning Features “The Upside of Inequality” “CBS Sunday Morning” feature on inequality, which includes Hitler, Marie Antoinette, beatings, starving paupers in coffins, Thomas Piketty, and poverty statistics that don’t account for the trillion dollars America spends helping the poor, gives me 20 seconds to defend capitalism. Here are all the things I said that they chose not to use. Read More
Lies, Damned Lies, and Steve Rattner’s Statistics Lies, Damned Lies, And Steve Rattner’s Statistics If liberal economists could win the economic debate with honest arguments, they would make them. As President Reagan once joked, “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” In his New York Times op-ed, Steve Rattner adds his name to the list of people willing to compromise their reputation to mislead the American people. No serious economist would measure a president’s performance blindly from the day they stepped into… Read More
Innovation Hubs Like New York Don’t “Deserve” Federal Bailouts With the migration of America's talent to hubs of innovation, like New York, it's disingenuous to claim the hubs subsidize America and therefore deserve bailouts by other states because they pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes. Federalism is based on the notion that some taxation and spending should follow Americans wherever they live. Many of New York's highly taxed millionaires were raised and educated elsewhere and moved to New York at the expense of their hometowns’ diminished future, while Florida's retirees moved there after paying a lifetime of taxes… Read More
Ed Conard Featured in CQ Researcher Report “Inequality in America: Can the Growing Wealth Gap Be Closed?” CQ Researcher released its latest report “Inequality in America: Can the Growing Wealth Gap Be Closed?” featuring an interview with Ed Conard. Excerpts from the report: On incentivizing risk-taking to grow the economy: Edward Conard, a visiting scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI), calls the wealth gap an inevitable byproduct of an economy that prospers by rewarding innovators and risk-takers. Before the coronavirus struck, the United States had enjoyed a strong economy with low unemployment rates and rising wages. After an 11-year bull market, the Dow Jones Industrial… Read More
Ben Shapiro Again Recommends Ed Conard’s NYT Bestselling Books Ben Shapiro again recommended Ed Conard’s New York Times bestselling books, The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class (2016) and Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy is Wrong (2012). 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
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
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
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
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