Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
Upside of Inequality Unintended Consequences Oxford

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  • 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 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Joe Scarborough and I debate President Trump's New Immigration Plan on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Joe Scarborough and Ed Conard Debate Pres. Trump’s Immigration Plan on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
    Joe Scarborough and I debate President Trump’s new immigration plan and its emphasis on high-skilled immigration to produce economic growth on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Read More

  • Ed Conard in NRO My new National Review op-ed explains why CBO expects the tax cut to pay for itself
    Is the tax cut expected to pay for itself? Yes — if we use the Congressional Budget Office’s forecast and any economically logical standard, the tax cut makes both current and future generations better off. The CBO now expects the nominal gross domestic product to increase nearly $750 billion more per year by 2020 than in its forecast prior to the tax cut. It originally attributed about one third of that growth to the tax-cut legislation — even by that estimate, the cut more than pays for itself. The CBO… Read More

  • USA Today logo Read My USA Today Op-Ed: “Tax Cut Law Helps Future Generations”
    Tax Cut Law Helps Future Generations A one-time increase in gross domestic product that generations can enjoy for years to come is not a 'sugar high' Borrowing to buy an asset that produces more income than the interest expense makes your children richer. The debt doesn’t make them poorer. Without this basic understanding of finance, deficit hawks can’t distinguish deficit-financed consumption from borrowing that increases the economy’s capacity to pay the interest on the borrowed money, including any resulting increase in the interest rate. The latter makes future generations richer,… Read More

  • WSJ logo 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

  • Read My New National Review Op-Ed: “Let’s Not Kid Ourselves About 70 Percent Tax Rates” 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

  • WSJ logo 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

  • Ed Conard in NRO: Free-Market Republicans Risk Irrelevance by Ignoring the Concerns of Blue-Collar Voters Read My New National Review Op-Ed: Free-Market Republicans Risk Irrelevance by Ignoring the Concerns of Blue-Collar Voters
    Free-market Republicans must recognize they can’t build a winning coalition without the president’s supporters. In our two-party democracy, agendas without winning coalitions are largely irrelevant. Edward Conard National Review Online June 16, 2018 Prior to the president’s victory, protectors of free enterprise, foreign-policy hawks, and social conservatives controlled the GOP by giving each other what they wanted most: lower taxes and restrained spending; larger defense budgets; and judges who limited the federal government. President Trump’s supporters upended this coalition, seized control of the GOP, and won the presidency with victories… Read More

  • Debating Inequality, Innovation, and High-Skilled Immigration on Conversations with Bill Kristol Debating Inequality, Innovation, and High-Skilled Immigration on “Conversations with Bill Kristol”
    Bill Kristol and I debate income inequality, innovation, and why only high-skilled immigration can grow the American economy fast enough to pay for retiring baby boomers without damaging the economy with high taxes and slower growth. Watch here on "Conversations with Bill Kristol."     Read More