Tyler Cowen
General DirectorHolbert C. Harris Chair of Economics, George Mason University
tcowen@gmu.edu
Biography
Tyler Cowen is the general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and holds the Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University. He also serves on the Mercatus Center's board of directors.
He worked until 1989 as an assistant and associate professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine and then returned to George Mason, where in 1998 he was named general director of both the Mercatus Center and George Mason's James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy. In 2000, Dr. Cowen was named the Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics.
A dedicated writer and translator of economic ideas who often delves into the economics of culture, Dr. Cowen has published dozens of books, reviews, and articles. His most recent book, Discover Your Inner Economist, shows how economic notions-such as incentives, signals, and markets-apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business.
His previous books include: Good & Plenty: The Creative Successes of American Arts Funding (2006); Markets and Culture Voices: Liberty vs. Power in the Lives of the Mexican Amate Painters (2005); Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures(2002); What Price Fame?(2000); and In Praise of Commercial Culture(1998).
Dr. Cowen has also edited multiple works, including the volume of Public Goods and Market Failures, Economic Welfare, and New Theories of Market Failure. He co-authored the 1994 book Explorations in the New Monetary Economics with Randall Kroszner.
Dr. Cowen studied economics at George Mason University and earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1987.
Links to Dr. Cowen's writings, his acclaimed "Ethnic Dining Guide" to Washington, DC, and his vita can be found on his personal web page.
Dr. Cowen resides in Fairfax, Virginia, with his wife and stepdaughter. He writes daily for his popular web log with colleague Alex Tabarrok - The Marginal Revolution.
