LATEST
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
Official Stats Overstate Poverty by Measuring Before $1T in Government Spending on “Just the News”
Ed explains that official statistics overstate poverty by measuring it before $1 trillion of government spending. So employment gains appear to have an exaggerated effect on reducing poverty and inequality. 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
Predicting How Coronovirus May Impact the Economy on Fox Business
Ed Conard joins Stu Varney to discuss the coronavirus’s potential impact on the U.S. and global economy on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.” Will the coronavirus send us into a recession? Read More
Debating the Strength of the Trump Economy on Bill Martinez Live
Ed Conard discusses the on going strength of the Trump economy on Bill Martinez Live. Read More
HIGHLIGHTS
A New Year’s Resolution Worth Making
Real Clear Politics By Edward Conard | December 31, 2014 With oil prices plunging below $60 a barrel, the U.S. economy growing at an annualized 5 percent last quarter, and the Dow soaring above 18,000, it's easy to overlook academic research published in 2014 that will likely have a lasting impact on economic debate. In particular, a half-dozen highly credible studies debunked widely-held economic myths. Each of these studies illustrate the need to confront wishful thinking with a great deal of skepticism. The year began with Harvard's Raj Chetty and… Read More
Ed Conard on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
On the show, Jon Stewart and Ed discuss Unintended Consequences and why risk-taking isn't the enemy of a properly functioning economy. Read More
Ed Conard debates Vice President Biden’s former chief economist, Jared Bernstein, on income inequality
At the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles on Monday, a top-level discussion of income inequality, economic mobility, and poverty revealed differing interpretations of the data, their causes, and their implications for public policy. AEI visiting scholar Edward Conard faced off against Vice President Biden’s former chief economist Jared Bernstein. The Bernstein/Conard debate over inequality went something like this: Bernstein suggested that inequality was bad for the bottom of the wage scale, as evidenced by stagnant or falling wages at the lower end of the income distribution, relative to many… Read More
Ed Conard defeats the IQ2 Motion: “Income Inequality Impairs the American Dream of Upward Mobility”
Despite a highly partisan crowd of voters, Ed defeated the IQ2 Motion: "Income Inequality Impairs the American Dream of Upward Mobility.” Thirty percent of the voters moved to Ed’s side of the motion—one of the largest swings in the history of IQ2. Opening Statement If income inequality truly impaired mobility, there would be telltale signs: Growing inequality would have reduced mobility. It hasn’t. Even Emanuel Saez, of the liberal Piketty and Saez duo, admits, the chance of a low-income child reaching any higher level of income has increased. Economies with more… Read More
Ed Conard debates Nobel Prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz
Ed and Joe Stiglitz face off on economics and income inequality. Read More
The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy
In the New York Times Magazine Adam Davidson comments on Ed Conard's new book. Read More
Please Don’t Soak the Rich
Wall Street Journal review of Ed book, Unintended Consequences. Read More
Ed Conard on Fareed Zakaria
Ed discusses his new book and the value of risk taking for the economy. Read More
Ed Conard debates Alan Krueger on Obama’s economic record and if he’s to blame for slow growth on Bloomberg TV
Given the last five years of economic activity, is Obama the worst president since WWII? Read More
No Role for Fed in Income Distribution
NEW YORK TIMES by Ed Conard | October 27, 2014 The Federal Reserve has neither the mandate to redistribute wealth nor the tools to do it effectively. Should it try, it will likely fail. Were it to succeed, it would likely lower middle- and working-class incomes. Either way, it would violate one of America’s founding principles — no taxation without representation — as well as its mandate to promote stable prices. A blatant political act like this would justify Congressional intervention and jeopardize the Fed’s critically needed independence. A Federal… Read More
Ed Conard on ABC News
Ed argues that innovation and incentives improve the U.S. economy. Read More
Rescuing Subprime Borrowers Won’t Fix the Economy
Fortune Magazine By Edward Conard | June 11, 2014 In their new book, House of Debt, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi make a persuasive argument that a decline in consumption caused by a drop in home prices slowed the economic recovery more than a weakened banking system. Even if banks were strong, they argue, the demand for loans would still be weak. Mian and Amir Sufi blame a sharp increase in savings by highly levered homeowners for the fall off in consumption and borrowing; as a result, the authors urge taxpayers to… Read More