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Russ Roberts
Russell David Roberts (born September 19, 1954) is an American economist. He is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He is also the host of the EconTalk podcast.
Roberts was born on September 19, 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He then did doctoral studies in economics at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Gary Becker. He received a Ph.D. in 1981 with a dissertation on the design of government transfer programs.
Roberts has taught at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis (where he was the founding director of what is now the Center for Experiential Learning at the Olin Business School), the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a regular commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Roberts was appointed the third president of Shalem College in November 2020, a position he assumed in March 2021. In explaining the college's selection of Roberts, chair of the executive committee of Shalem's International Board of Governors Yair Shamir pointed to Roberts's American educational background as a deciding factor, as well as his outspoken belief in the necessity of a true liberal arts education today.
Roberts blogs at Cafe Hayek with Donald J. Boudreaux at George Mason University.
Roberts has hosted the weekly economics podcast EconTalk since March 2006. The podcast is hosted by the Library of Economics and Liberty, an online library sponsored by Liberty Fund. On the podcast, Roberts has interviewed more than a dozen Nobel Prize laureates including Nobel Prize in Economics recipients Daron Acemoglu, Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman, Abhijit Banerjee, Gary Becker, and Joseph Stiglitz as well as Nobel Prize in Physics recipient Robert Laughlin. He has also interviewed people such as Patrick Collison, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Sam Harris and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Robert's books illustrate economic concepts in unconventional ways. In 2001, he published the novel The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, which conveys economic ideas through conversations between two fictional teachers at an exclusive high school in Washington, D.C.: one is a market oriented economics instructor, and the other is an English teacher who wants governmental protections that curb the excesses of unrestrained capitalism.
In 2008, Roberts released another novel, The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity, which focuses on the experiences of Ramon Fernandez, a university student and star tennis player who, as a child, accompanied his mother to the U.S. after she fled from Fidel Castro's Cuba. Like The Invisible Heart, The Price of Everything uses conversations between its main characters to address economic concepts (in this case ideas such as the price system, spontaneous order and the possibility of price gouging in crisis situations).
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Russ Roberts
Russell David Roberts (born September 19, 1954) is an American economist. He is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He is also the host of the EconTalk podcast.
Roberts was born on September 19, 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He then did doctoral studies in economics at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Gary Becker. He received a Ph.D. in 1981 with a dissertation on the design of government transfer programs.
Roberts has taught at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis (where he was the founding director of what is now the Center for Experiential Learning at the Olin Business School), the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a regular commentator on business and economics for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Roberts was appointed the third president of Shalem College in November 2020, a position he assumed in March 2021. In explaining the college's selection of Roberts, chair of the executive committee of Shalem's International Board of Governors Yair Shamir pointed to Roberts's American educational background as a deciding factor, as well as his outspoken belief in the necessity of a true liberal arts education today.
Roberts blogs at Cafe Hayek with Donald J. Boudreaux at George Mason University.
Roberts has hosted the weekly economics podcast EconTalk since March 2006. The podcast is hosted by the Library of Economics and Liberty, an online library sponsored by Liberty Fund. On the podcast, Roberts has interviewed more than a dozen Nobel Prize laureates including Nobel Prize in Economics recipients Daron Acemoglu, Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman, Abhijit Banerjee, Gary Becker, and Joseph Stiglitz as well as Nobel Prize in Physics recipient Robert Laughlin. He has also interviewed people such as Patrick Collison, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Sam Harris and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Robert's books illustrate economic concepts in unconventional ways. In 2001, he published the novel The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, which conveys economic ideas through conversations between two fictional teachers at an exclusive high school in Washington, D.C.: one is a market oriented economics instructor, and the other is an English teacher who wants governmental protections that curb the excesses of unrestrained capitalism.
In 2008, Roberts released another novel, The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity, which focuses on the experiences of Ramon Fernandez, a university student and star tennis player who, as a child, accompanied his mother to the U.S. after she fled from Fidel Castro's Cuba. Like The Invisible Heart, The Price of Everything uses conversations between its main characters to address economic concepts (in this case ideas such as the price system, spontaneous order and the possibility of price gouging in crisis situations).
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