Richard Vedder

Richard Kent Vedder is an economics professor at Ohio University. He is listed as a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and the American Enterprise Institute and has also worked with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on such issues as spending on public schools. He has written about immigration and labor for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. He has also written articles about taxation and tobacco and other issues related to taxes. He is on the board of the National Taxpayers Union.

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
Vedder is also listed as a "scholar" at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In 2008, he won ALEC's Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award.

ALEC, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, The Independent Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and the National Taxpayers Union have all received money from Koch foundations.

Background
Education:
 * B.A. in Economics, Northwestern University in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Economics, University of Illinois in 1965

Vedder previously served as an economist with the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, with which, according to the ALEC Annual Meeting Program, "he maintains a consulting relationship." He also has previously served as the John M. Olin Visiting Professor of Labor Economics and Public Policy at the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Affiliations

 * Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute
 * Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Public Interest Institute
 * Member of National Taxpayers Union's Board of Directors
 * Adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
 * Member of the Board of Scholars at the Virginia Institute for Public Policy
 * On the Board of the National Taxpayers Union.
 * He is an Emeritus professor at Ohio University.

Tobacco, Taxes, and Immigration
In 1993 Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway did a study for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) about the impact of immigration on the American economy. In March 1994, AdTI published the report "Immigration and Unemployment: New Evidence" written by Richard Vedder, Lowell Gallaway and Stephen Moore, who is also affiliated with ALEC.

Later that year, Vedder served as "peer-reviewer" for a pro-tobacco junk science report titled Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination, also published by AdTI. There are many documents in the Tobacco Institute documents online mentioning Richard Vedder. Many of them are confidental reports listing allied economists and academics who were willing to provide expert testimony for tobacco companies. One such document states,

"Professor Richard Vedder (Ohio University) wrote an op-ed article on tax reform that appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer in April (newspaper in home district of Ways & Means Member Gradison). Copies were sent to Gradison and Ways & Means Member Pease."

Richard Vedder also worked for some time together with Prof. Dwight R. Lee:
 * Dwight R. Lee and Richard K. Vedder, "Study Finds Americans Prefer Deficit Reduction over Tax Cuts," November 22, 1996
 * Tony Caporale, Dwight R. Lee, Richard K. Vedder, "Slowing Monetary Growth since 1984: A Public Choice Explanation", Public Choice, 1997

Member of the Tobacco Institute's Economists Network
Vedder was a member of the Tobacco Institute's clandestine Economists' network -- a group of academics that the tobacco industry recruited who worked behind the scenes to fight proposed tax increases on cigarettes and the declining acceptability of public and workplace smoking by generating favorable research for publication, presenting favorable papers at academic conferences and symposia, and being ready to challenge the "social costs" economic arguments employed by anti-smoking activist at public and legislative forums. Members of the Institute's Economists Network also assisted by writing letters-to-the-editor and lecturing to journalists on behalf of the industry.

Affiliations

 * National Foundation for American Policy Advisory Board

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI)
 * S. Fred Singer
 * The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke

Related Links

 * Curriculum Vita Richard Kent Vedder, Ohio University, summer 1991?
 * National Academic Advisory Board, Dr. Richard Vedder, Public Interest Institute, August 1998
 * Vita Richard K. Vedder, Ohio University, November 1998
 * Departmental Faculty, Ohio University, May 2001
 * Board of Scholars, Virginia Institute for Public Policy, 2004
 * Staff Bios, Richard K. Vedder, The Independent Institute'