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? ... 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 ... Read More
Thomas Philippon Claims the US Has Grown Less Competitive Than Europe. Seriously?! I Take Him to Task in My NRO Review of His Book
With profits rising, productivity growth slowing, investment middling despite near-zero interest rates, and large competitors gaining market share, proponents of income redistribution insist that an increase in monopoly rents — profits earned by cooperating with competitors to raise prices and restrict output rather than competing honestly with them — has misallocated resources, increased income inequality, and slowed middle- and working-class wage growth. If cronyism ... 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 ... Read More
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; ... 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 ... 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 ... Read More
