Arthur B. Laffer

Arthur B. Laffer, inventor of the "Laffer Curve," is co-chair of the policy council for the Free Enterprise Fund (FEF) and the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, "an economic research and consulting firm that provides investment-research services to institutional asset managers". The Laffer Center for Global Economic Growth, founded in 2011 in partnership with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is tied to Koch Industries through its Vice Chairman, Richard Fink, and Executive Director Wayne Gable, both prominent Koch executives, and a $100,000 grant from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation in 2009.

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
Laffer is an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) "scholar" as of 2011. He spoke at a Shell Oil-sponsored plenary session of the 38th Annual ALEC Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 4th, 2011, along with fellow ALEC "scholar" Stephen Moore.

Background
Laffer Associates, which was founded in 1979, provides investment research on "macroeconomic, political and demographic changes affecting global financial markets."

He is often called "the father of supply-side economics." Laffer was involved in the controversial Proposition 13, the 1978 California initiative that drastically cut property taxes in the state and limited future tax increases, which many blame in part for California's current financial crisis.

He is on the board of directors of the U.S. Filter Corporation, MasTec, Inc., Neff Corp., Nicholas-Applegate Mutual Funds, Nicholas-Applegate Growth Equity Fund, Coinmach Laundry Corporation and Oxigene, Inc., among others. He previously worked as a professor at Pepperdine University, the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago. Laffer earned a B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1963 and a PdD from Stanford University in 1971.

Laffer was selected to serve on President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1981 to 1989. He was active in Reagan's presidential race in 1980 and his re-election effort in 1984.

"During the years 1972 to 1977, Laffer was a consultant to Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of the Treasury George P. Shultz. He was also the first to hold the title of Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget under Mr. Shultz from October 1970 to July 1972."

In 1999 Time called him one of "the Century's Greatest Minds" for his invention of the Laffer Curve.