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WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.




TOBACCO INDUSTRY EXPLANATORY

ABBREVIATIONS
JARGON
SPIN-MEISTERS
INITIALS
FIRST & NICKNAMES
Misc.RESEARCH HELP
Smoking-Gun docs.

RELEVANT LINKS
James Savarese
Robert Tollison
Anna Tollison
Richard Wagner
James C Miller III
economists networks
Carol M Robert
Elizabeth A Masaitis
Committee on Taxation and Economic Growth
Harold Hochman
Fred McChesney
Thomas Borcherding
Delores T Martin
Dennis Dyer
George Minshew
Ctr.Study Pub.Choice
James Buchanan
William Prendergast
Bill Orzechowski
CASH-FOR-COMMENT
NETWORK MEMBERS

Dominick Armentano
Burton A Abrams
Lee Alston
Ryan C Amacher
Gary Anderson
Lee Anderson
William Anderson
Terry Anderson
Roger Arnold
Richard W Ault
Michael Babcock
Joe A Bell
Bruce L Benson
Jean J Boddewyn
Peter Boettke
Thomas Borcherding
William J Boyes
Charles Breeden
Lawrence Brunner
Henry N Butler
Bill Bryan
Cecil Bohanon
Morris Coates
Roger Congleton
Jeffrey R Clark
Michael Crew
Allan Dalton
John David
Michael Davis
Arthur T Denzau
Clifford Dobitz
John Dobra
Randall Eberts
Robert B Ekelund
Roger L Faith
David Fand
Susan Feigenbaum
Clifford Fry
Lowell Gallaway
Celeste Gaspari
David ER Gay
Kenneth V Greene
Kevin B Grier
Brian Goff
Sherman Hanna
Anne Harper-Fender
Kathy Hayes
Dennis Hein
James Heins
Robert Higgs
F Steb Hipple
Harold M Hochman
George E Hoffer
John Howe
William Hunter
Stephen Huxley
John D Jackson
Joseph M Jadlow
Cecil Johnson
Samson Kimenyi
David Klingaman
Michael Kurth
David Laband
Suuner Lacroix
Dwight R Lee
Dennis Logue
C. Matt Lindsay
Donald P Lyden
Craig MacPhee
Delores Martin
Chuck Mason
Charles Maurice
Fred McChesney
James E McClure
William McEachern
Richard McKenzie
Robert McMahon
Arthur Mead
Paul L Menchik
John F Militello
William C Mitchell
Greg Neihaus
Allen Parkman
Mark Pauly
William Peterson
Harlan Platt
Michael D Pratt
Thomas Pogue
Barry W Poulson
Edward Price
Robert Pulsinelli
Raymond Raab
Roger Riefler
Terry Ridgeway
Mario Rizzo
Morgan Reynolds
Simon Rottenberg
Randy Rucker
Richard Saba
Todd Sandler
David Saurman
Mark Schmitz
Robert Sexton
William Shughart
Robert J Staaf
Thomas Stimson
Wendell Sweetser
Mark Thornton
Mark Toma
David G Tuerck
Richard Vedder
Bruce Vermeullen
Richard Wagner
J Keith Watson
Burton Weisbrod
Walter E Williams
Thomas L Wyrick
Bruce Yandle
Boon Yoon
Richard D Zerbe

 

 

OPINION ONLY

Peter J Boettke     [Prof.]    

— An ultra-libertarian economist from the Oakland University in Rochester MI who allowed himself to be recruited into the tobacco industry's cash-for-comments network — but who doesn't appear to have provided them with any services. —  

Peter Boettke appears to have been recruited to the Tobacco Institute's Economists Network as one of three academics operating in Michigan. However he doesn't appear to have delivered much ... if anything at all.

The curiousity is why he was kept on their books for so long. He appears to have attracted their attention because he was becoming the foremost promoter of Hayekian economics.

The idea of running a team of cash-for-comments academic economists was developed by Ogilvy & Mather Public Relations for the Tobacco Institute in 1983 and 1984. At that time the operation was run by one of O&M's contracted consultants, James Savarese, who had both economics and labor/union contacts.

Savarese knew Professor Robert Tollison, of the Economics Department of George Mason University. Tollison had excellent contacts with a large number of Hayek/neo-con economists at other universities, due mainly to his directorship of the Center for the Study of Public Choice, which was located at GMU, but run as a private think-tank. Boettke at this time was a graduate student at GMU.

Tobacco Industry money found its way to the Center, and before long Tollison and the CSPU were acting as a recruitment and money-laundry service and helping Savarese to develop the cash-for-comments network among appropriate academic economists.

The first project began in June 1984, getting 13 economists on their network to write op-ed articles in support of the tobacco industry position on excise taxes, plant them on a local newspaper, then send copies to their Congressman.

Jim Savarese and Bob Tollison (supported by Anne Tollison and staff from the Center) took over the operations from O&M, and branched out into a diverse range of cash-for-comments networks: academic professors in law , business, marketing, and advertising, indoor-air-quality testing experts, risk-assessment specialists, biomedical researchers.

These academics all had in common the desire to make money from the tobacco industry without revealing their connection to the 'Merchants of Death'. With Savarese and Tollison providing the shield, they produced supposedly "independent' opinion-editorials (op-eds); turned up at ordinance hearings on public smoking to oppose smoking bans; attended and gave expert evidence to Congressional inquiries and the like. They constantly spouted the tobacco industry propaganda, and were well paid for selling-out the public trust and the ethical reputation of their universities ... averaging $1,500 a time for these services.

Peter Boettke signed up in 1988 when he began working as an Associate Professor, but before he had gained his PhD. However he was completely unproductive.

By 1989 Tollison and Savarese had about 60 Professors of Economics on their books (including Boettke) , and about the same number from other academic disciplines.

Decline

The Savarese-Tollison partnership appears to have broken up around 1990, but Savarese continued to run the operation for most of the decade — often using Tollison just as one source (but better paid than the others).

Over time — and sometimes abruptly — some of these economists dropped out of the operation. Maybe some of them developed a conscience?

A few new recruits were added regularly to the networks in the 1990 - 1994 period. But the tobacco companies themselves tended to take control of the biomedical research specialists, probably because of the legal necessity of dealing with them through lawyers, to avoid the risk of legal 'discovery'. The economists' network lasted the longest, and was the most productive from the industry viewpoint.

For more background information on how Savarese and Tollison operated these networks, see:
  • Letter to op-ed writers.
  • cash-for-comments networks (Overview)
  • Robert D (Bob) Tollison
  • James Michael (Jim) Savarese

Boettke's Books
One cutting in the tobacco archives is a reiew of Peter Boettke's book, "The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: The Formative Years 1918-1928." [Published in 1991]

This suggests that, unlike his other network associates from the Public Choice Society, Boettke was a serious scholar more concerned than the others with serious economic analysis.

He was also an editor of economic tomes; editing a later book on "Companion to Austrian Economics" and a couple of others along similar lines.


Some key documents

• Professor Peter Boettke, Department of Economics, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309
    • Boettke now has his own website

Peter J Boettke


1960 Jan 3: Born


1983 May: BA in Economics at Grove City College



Network Establishment


1986 Apr 3: This appears to be the approved copy of the letter on "New Research Proposals" that Jim Savarese sent to his network economists. [Eighteen months before Boettke joined the group]

This letter leaves no doubt that these academic economist knew that they were being paid to protect the interests of the tobacco industry.

    The economist were also being given outline "rebuttals" developed by Tollison and Wagner to help them in writing their counter-attacks to an an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) anti-smoking report.

I would like to thank you for all of your cooperation and diligence in handling the projects we have worked on together. I am taking this opportunity to alert you to some new research opportunities that may be available in the upcoming weeks.

As you know, the tobacco industry is exposed continuously to a barrage of attacks on economic issues. Many of these attacks involve a serious perversion of the concept of social cost. The Tobacco Institute is interested in considering research proposals which would establish a much more realistic examination of the social cost issue as it relates to the smoking issue.

I have attached a report prepared by the staff of the Office of Technology Assessment which is representative of the kind of "research" being put forth by anti-tobacco activists. I have also included the rebuttals developed by Bob Tollison and Richard Wagner to the OTA report.

The Institute would like to examine proposals for research that test, in a quantitative way, a number of propositions on the relevant cost considerations that apply to the smoking issue.
This went out to the long list of cash-for-comments economist on the network and many of them wrote op-eds and fed them to their local newspapers.




1987 Jan: Boettke has completed his MA in Economics at George Mason University



1987-88: Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, George Mason University
[Note that he doesn't yet have his PhD.]

1988–90: Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, School of Business Administration, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309


1988 April 25: Following a joint meeting, the lobbyist Leslie Dawson of James Savarese & Associates is minuting the agreed decisions to the Tobacco Institute:

  • During consideration of the Welfare Reform Act last week in Senate Finance Committee, Senator Chaffee offered an amendment to increase cigarette excise tax by 1 cent (earmarked for Medicare). Although amendment was defeated, we may have to deal with other earmarking attempts when the bill comes to the floor in June.

        [Lawyer Mike] Forscey and [lobbyist Jim] Savarese took the assignment to develop a anti-earmarking document to be used for lobbying on the Hill, particularly on the Welfare Reform Act.

  • Bill Orzechowski [Tobacco Institute in-house economist] mentioned the need for a liberal economist in Massachusetts to counter proposed excise tax legislation. The economist is needed to lobby and testify by end of June. Savarese will try to find an appropriate person.

        Excise tax bills are also pending in Lousiana and Pennsylvania, so economists may be needed in those states.

  • Strategy documents on the NEC [National Economic Commission] have been received from agencies. A meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Friday, April 29 at 10:00 a.m. to develop a comprehensive plan for dealing with the commission.



Tobacco targets excise taxes and the
National Economic Commission
1988 June /E: Carol Hyrcaj, an Issues Manager at the Tobacco Institute has outlined the industry's programs to counter the possibility that the new President (the then VP George HW Bush) would seek to raise his budget by imposing increased excise taxes on cigarettes.
We also sought to impact the deliberations of three separate deficit-reduction commissions, as well as both parties' tax
    platforms. The commissions — including the National Economic Commission, which was created by an act of Congress — plan to issue recommendations to the new president on methods to reduce the federal deficit.

    Next year, we expect to see reintroduction of federal bills to earmark taxes for the homeless, drug programs, long-term health care for the elderly and Medicare. We also estimate that 35 states will introduce 100 bills calling for increased cigarette taxes.
The object of her Issues Division was:
.. to discourage reliance on tobacco excise taxes to meet social and economic objectives by demonstrating that excise taxes are regressive and inconsistent with fair taxation.
  • Conduct presentations by consulting economists on the excise tax issue before national and regional tax policy conferences.
  • Commission op-ed articles from each consulting economist. As articles are published, provide to other Institute divisions for promotion and submission to appropriate public policymakers.
  • Support preparation and aggressive promotion of allied group studies/reports on the excise tax issue, including studies on earmarking for long-term health services, and alternative revenue options.
  • Produce a video demonstrating how earmarking is unfair and unsound tax policy.
  • Establish an "Economic Witness Team." Educate the team of 5 or 6 economists on all aspects of tax-related issues, including "social costs." Team will receive media training in preparation for delivering testimony, conducting one-on-one briefings, etc.
  • Conduct tax-reform conferences in several states.


1988 June /E: The tobacco industry has circulated a list of members of the National Economic Commission. These are the people they want their economists to influence.

    NEC is a bipartisan Congress-created committee which advises on taxation.


1988 June 23: Debbie Schoonmaker at the Tobacco Institute receives a memo from contract organiser James Savarese with "an update status on the NEC Op-Ed Project:

[NEC = National Economic Commission, the advisory group they were trying to influence.]

As it now stands, 9 articles have been published, 4 articles (New Mexico, Missouri, Oregon, and Idaho) are forthcoming, 4 articles have been submitted for publication, and 2 articles are in the revision stage.
It lists the network economists by the state in which they operate together with their successes in planting articles on their principle state newspapers. At this stage they only have the one economist in Michigan:
MICHIGAN:
Professor Peter Boettke, Department of Economics, Oakland University, Rochester,MI 48309

[He had only just joined the university and hadn't yet completed his PhD. No newspaper was listed for Boettke.

    Further fortnightly updates until 22 July also show that he had failed to submit an NEC Op-ed piece. However, since he still remained on the list, clearly they were expecting him to produce.]



1988 July 22: The Savarese Update on the NEC Op-Ed Project shows that while another three economists on the network have managed to get material published (from the July 5 Status report), Peter Boettke had still not submitted one.

The NEC Op-Ed Project, attached, has not changed since the July 5 status report. As it now stands, 13 articles have been published, 1 article (New Mexico) is forthcoming, 3 articles have been submitted for publication, and 2 articles are in the revision stage.
Of the 18 economists then on the network list, only two had failed to either submit or plant an article.



Savarese and Tollison engaged in an energetic period of recruitment.
By the end of this year they had boosted the numbers of economists willing
to work secretly for the tobacco industry, from 18 to 70.



1988 Dec: /E The Tax Hearing Readiness document of the Tobacco institute [for the 1989-1990 legislative session] lists both the TI economist who are immediately on tap, and also those in other States who can be called upon:

  • Bill Orzechowski, Tobacco Institute
  • Robert Tollison, George Mason University
  • Richard Wagner, George Mason University
  • Dwight Lee, University of Georgia, Athens
  • Michael Davis, Southern Methodist University
  • Gary Anderson, California State at Northridge
  • Other Network Economists (see attached list)
It also includes the detailed list of the 64 "Other Network Economists", grouped according to their State:
MICHIGAN

Professor Peter Boettke, Department of Economics,
Oakland University, Rochester, Ml 48309

Prof Lawrence Brunner, Department of Economics
Central Michigan University. Mount Pleasant, MI 48859 517-774-3820

Professor David Fand, Department of Economics
Wayne State University. Detroit, MI 48202 313-642-2443



1989 Jan: Boettke eventually gained his PhD in Economics from George Mason University. He also won their William P Snavely Award for Outstanding Achievement for Graduate Studies in Economics

    He had now become a recognised disciple of Hayek and von Mises.


1989 Jan 11: The Tobacco Institute's report file on their Scientific Consultancy Activity 1988-89.

This is an 80 page mixed bag of files dumped together. [Note that the first is in 1990]

  • Pages 3 to 23: This section begins with Witness Appearances in 1988 and 1989 involving both "Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) experts" who work for the Tobacco Institute. It specifies three of their most trusted economists [Bob Tollison, Richard Wagner and Dwight Lee]
  • Pages 24 to 31: Labor IAQ Presentations in 1988 and 1989 which involves key figures in the labor movement and a few "IAQ experts."
    [Labor/IAQ refers to workplace indoor air quality = workplace smoking policy.]
  • Pages 32 to 39: IAQ/ETS conferences attended by tobacco industry disinformation experts in 1988 and 1989.
    [It was important for the tobacco industry to treat Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) as distinct categories since they claimed that second-hand smoke was only a minor component of indoor air quality.]
  • Pages 40 to 41: Academic and Unaffiliated Scientfic Witnesses
  • Pages 43 to 53: Smokers Rights Legislation in various states.
  • See page 54: Tobacco Institute "Confidential" memo on "Tax Hearing Readiness" which is their battle plan to counter earmaking of cigarette excise taxes to fund health programs. It lists a large number of organizations and a few congressmen who can be relied on to help. It also has both primary and secondary lists of economists from the Savarese/Tollison "cash-for-comments" network who had indicated that they were willing to give testimony.
Economists: [Primary]
  • Bill Orzechowski, Tobacco Institute
  • Robert Tollison, George Mason University
  • Richard Wagner, George Mason University
  • Dwight Lee, University of Georgia, Athens
  • Michael Davis, Southern Methodist University
  • Gary Anderson, California State at Northridge
  • William Prendergast (resource: Prendergast/Solmon papers)
  • Other Network economists [see Secondary attached list below]
"Due by mid-year is a book examining earmarking and "user fees" from a public choice perspective. The treatise will contain 8-10 chapters written by respected economists, including, Henri LePage and Nobel laureate James Buchanan."
The Tobacco Institute's list of cash-for-comments professors and senior academics who were available to write op-eds and give evidence at Congressional hearings, etc. had grown extensively, and Michigan still has three... with Boettke remaining unproductive.
  • Professor Peter Boettke, Oakland University
  • Prof Lawrence Brunner, Central Michigan University.
  • Professor David Fand,Wayne State University.

[TI budget papers show that each op-ed now earned the economists $3,000. Presentations made to conferences earned them $5,000.

    Savarese was paid $70,000 to $100,000 per annum for this project, and Ogilvy & Mather was being paid $250,000.]

See page 5


1989 Mar 17-19: The Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society together with the Economic Science Association. These are all Hayek-oriented libertarian economists of the ultra-freemarket kind who gave us the 2008-9 Global Financial Crisis.

    The speakers list mentions many active members of the economists network: — some of whom spoke more than once. (William Hunter in particular.)

    The Public Choice Society was a profitable recruiting ground for Tollison and Savarese. And the large group of speakers on Public Health were those connected with Tollison's Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University and with the cash-for-comments network.

  • Robert Tollison
  • Richard Wagner
  • David ER Gay
  • Dwight Lee
  • William C Mitchell
  • Burton Abrams
  • Cecil E Bohanon
  • Charles Breeden
  • William J Hunter
  • Bruce Benson
  • Burton Weisbrod
  • Bruce Yandle
  • Roger L Faith
  • Roger Congleton
  • James Buchanan
  • Gary Anderson
  • Peter J Boettke
  • Jeffrey R Clark
  • Robert J Staaf



1989 April 18: Susan Stuntz (Issues Manager) at the Tobacco Institute wrote a memo to her boss Sam Chilcote. She is sending him material previously used for a two-day "Gerry Long" presentation which he wants to use in a shorter one-day (unspecified) briefing session.

[Gerald H Long was the CEO of RJ Reynolds who in 1988 had just taken over as Chairman of the Tobacco Institute's Executive Committee and wanted to make changes.]

This file has the speaker's powerpoints which include a list of network economists divided on a State-by-State basis.             [Note the document is 117 pages]

The outline for these Powerpoint slides is here in full, together with the politicians that the cash-for-comment economists were required to influence. It boasts that the...
Economists' Network [is] 64 Strong
      [and is] Targeted to Congressional Tax Writing Committees
            [focussing on the] Production of Op-Eds on Federal Tax Policy.
    MICHIGAN — (LEVIN. VANDER JAGT. RIEGLE) [Congressmen]
  • PETER BOETTKE, OAKLAND UNIV.
  • LAWRENCE BRUNNER, CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIV.
  • DAVID FAND, WAYNE STATE UNIV.
[Despite their lack of success at getting Boettke to write his op-ed on the NEC, they still have him listed here. The have also specified which Congressmen the economists should attempt to influence.]


1990–97: He has now become an Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, New York University, New York, NY 10003


1990 May 7: The Tobacco Institute's "1991 Tax and Social Cost Plans" have sections on

  • "Social Costs" Hearings Readiness (preparation for fielding witnesses at Congressional hearings.) They list here the arguments that the Institute and its allies must be prepared to present.
  • "Tax" Hearing Readiness (as above, but for excise tax increases, State and Federal)
  • List of cash-for-comment network economists in each State.
This is an updated list with the current locations of each, with phone numbers and addresses.
MICHIGAN
Professor Peter Boettke
Department of Economics, Oakland University
Rochester,MI 48309

Prof Lawrence Brunner
Department of Economics, Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, M I 48859 517-774-3820

Professor David Fand
Department of Economics, Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202 313-642-2443

[ However there is still no sign that Boettke has written anything for them, or made any witness appearances or approached any Congressmen on their behalf.

Usually economists who are found to be unproductive are abandoned quickly — and they already had two others in Michigan.]


1990 June: /E It now becomes clear why Boettke has not been working on network projects.

    He has published a substantial book (Kluwer Academic Publishers) "The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: The Formative Years, 1918-1928."

    This was an expansion of his doctoral dissertaiton, and it interprets the first decade of Soviet economic history in terms of the ideas of Ludwig con Mises and Friedrich Hayek.
[The book is a resounding success among the libertarians and corporate think-tank operators and analysts.

    He appears to have become a specialist in economic analysis of Communism, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe from this time on. ]


1991 Oct: Boettke reviewd the new book of his friend and fellow Public Choice economist, Richard Wagner "To Promote the General Welfare"


1992 Aug: /E He was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution during the 1992-93 year.


1993: His second major book on the Soviet Union was published: Why Perestroika Failed: The Politics and Economics of Socialist Transformation.


1994 March 16: A group of academic economists including almost all the members of the Tobacco Institute's cash-for-comments network sent an "An Open Letter to President Clinton on Healthcare Reform."

    This had been organised by David J Theroux, the founder and operator of the Independent Institute apparently with the assistance of an academic network member, Simon Rottenberg.

[The Independent Institute was way out in Mad-Hatter/Tea Party territory and was well-funded by the tobacco industry.

    It often performed as a contractor to the Tobacco Institute.]
. They say:

In The Open Letter to President Clinton, 565 economists and 76 other scholars from all 50 states and the District of Columbia state their firm opposition to any form of direct and indirect price controls in any healthcare program.

Rationing Health Care: The New Threat of Price Controls,
by Simon Rottenberg and David J. Theroux


    They use the old Chicken-Little straw-man scare techniques of shouting 'socialism' and claiming that the sky is falling.
In countries that have imposed these types of regulations, patients face delays of months and years for surgery, government bureaucrats decide treatment options instead of doctors or patients, and innovations in medical techniques and pharmaceuticals are dramatically reduced.
[As anyone who has lived in England, Canada, Australia, etc. can attest, these claims are pure rubbish.]

    Along with Boettke and his Public Choice associates, also on this list of signatories were numerous think-tank lobbyists [including most of the Hoover Institute] and others who worked for the tobacco industry. Listed also is the Research Director of the Independent Institute, Robert Higgs, who was also a fill-in network economist working for the Tobacco Institute via Tollison and Savarese.

1994 Oct 14: David Theroux of the Independent Institute is updating the Tobacco Institute on the progress of their book "Sin Taxes" which is a project being directed by Bill Shughart (a key member of the cash-for-comment economists network) and Tom Di Lorenzo (who worked for the tobacco industry direct,)


1994 Dec 14: Independnt Institute President, David Theroux writes to Tim Hyde, at RJ Reynolds Tobacco:

"We greatly appreciate your offer of a tax-deductible contribution of $5,000 toward our completing the study of the federal anti-tobacco campaign by Professor Thomas DiLorenzo.

    Please forward the contribution so that we may expedite this work. As we also discussed, if you want to proceed in having Professor DiLorenzo and others brief congressional staff members and/or freshman congresspersons, please advise me when and where you might want to have such a program occur.



1997: His third major publication was "Where Did Economics Go Wrong: Modern Economics As A Flight From Reality."

    If he'd had more insight into the the realities of American economics and politics, he would have found theanswer his question hidden in his own acknowledgements. He gives thanks to the

National Fellows Program of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, and from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in support of the Austrian Economics Program at NYU
[Richard Mellon Scaife controlled the libertarian promotional funds from his mother's foundation when he wasn't conspiring with the CIA and others on the far right of politics to bring down social democracy in Europe — and anything remotely liberal in the USA.]

1997–98: Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, School of Business, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY 10471


1998–03: Associate Professor, Department of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030 (tenured Fall 2000) Also the editor of the journal, Review of Austrian Economics (Kluwer Academic Publishers).


1999 June: Peter Boettke is now at the New York University and also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Heartland Institute. He is still mixing with a number of other cash-for-comment economists from the old Savarese network, and a few other tobacco industry academic lobbyists.

    The Board of Heartland has Philip Morris executive Roy E. Marden — Manager of Industry Affairs, Philip Morris Companies, Inc. Marden was Philip Morris's chief bag-man when dealing with think-tanks. He had given them $30,000 that year.


2003–07: Professor, Department of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

    He is closely involved with the Koch Brothers-funded Mercatus Center at GMU which is virtually an arm of the Atlas Network of libertarian think-tanks run with the assistance of the UK's Institute of Economic Affairs and Adam Smith Institute (both linked to the Mont Pelerin society).


2004: He is the "Hayek Visiting Fellow" at the London School of Economics. This fellowship is funded by the Ludwig von Mises Institute with US foundation money.

    The LSE has its own 'Hayek Society." which co-funds the Hayek Visiting Fellowship.


2009 Oct 19: London School of Economics promoted his lecture on the Austrian Economists.

Peter Boettke, George Mason University, USA, will speak on Hayek and Market Socialism on Tuesday 19 October at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

    Hayek is better appreciated for his ideological stance than his scientific contributions. While this is understandable given the ideological nature of the debates within which Hayek made his contributions to economics (for example his dispute with Keynes and with Lange/Lerner), Professor Boettke will argue that this belief is mistaken and that Hayek's ideological position was derived from his scientific understanding of economics, not the other way around.

    If Hayek's message is to be understood, it will demand a reorientation in economics, both theoretically and empirically, and will result in radical change in our self-understanding and our role in public policy discourse.

    Peter Boettke is a professor of economics at George Mason University, USA, where he also serves as research director at the Mercatus Center and deputy director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy. His published works include The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the formative years, 1918-1928, and Calculation and Coordination: essays on Socialism and transitional political economy.

    Professor Boettke is one of the leading representatives of the modern Austrian School of Economics and has served as the editor of the Review of Austrian Economics since 1998. He is also editor of The Legacy of FA Hayek: philosophy, politics and economics: three volumes.

2010 Puff-piece
Dr Peter J. Boettke is the Deputy Director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and a professor in the economics department at George Mason University.

    Dr Boettke, born and raised in New Jersey, received his BA in economics from Grove City College and his PhD in economics from George Mason University.

    Before joining the faculty at George Mason University in 1998, Dr Boettke held faculty positions at Oakland University, Manhattan College and New York University. In addition,

    Dr Boettke was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University during the 1992-1993 academic year. Boettke has been a visiting professor or scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena, Germany, the Stockholm School of Economics, Central European University in Prague and Charles University in Prague.


2010 Aug: The Wall Street Journal has commented:

Peter J. Boettke of George Mason University is the emerging standard-bearer for a revived Austrian school of economics. But the 50-year-old professor of economics at George Mason University in Virginia is emerging as the intellectual standard-bearer for the Austrian school of economics that opposes government intervention in markets and decries federal spending to prop up demand during times of crisis.

    Mr. Boettke, whose latest research explores people's ability to self-regulate, also is minting a new generation of disciples who are spreading the Austrian approach throughout academia, where it had long been left for dead. To these free-market economists, government intrusion ultimately sows the seeds of the next crisis. It hampers what one famous Austrian, Joseph Schumpeter, called the process of "creative destruction." Governments that spend money they don't have to cushion downturns, they say, lead nations down the path of large debts and runaway inflation. -


2012 June 5: Boettke is now a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, He has published a new book "Living Economics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" only a few years after deciding it was dead.

    He seems to have taken Hayek and von Mises down off their pedestals.

His diagnosis of the current maladies of the economics profession is especially valuable. He concludes by urging his colleagues to return to their discipline's original mission: to make sense of human action and communicate the findings to a public sorely in need of cogent counsel.


Independent Institute
The Independent Institute, which is itself a component of the Atlas Group of ultra-free-market think tanks with links to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute [all heavily dependent on commissioned corporate funding] appears to have taken over the role of administrator of the Tobacco Institute's cash-for-comments network at the end of the 1990s.

    Their research director and journal editor, Robert Higgs, was already a member of the network. Tobacco funding continued to flow to the Independent Institute which appears to have taken on the role of 'warehousing' these academic supporters to insulate them from discovery. The Institute acquired the bulk of the cabal of cash-for-comments economists who were still operating, and some who had been retired:

Senior Fellows
  • Bruce L Benson, Florida State
  • Robert Higgs, Independent Institute
  • William Shugart, Utah State
  • Richard Vedder, Ohio University
Research Fellows
  • Burton Abrams, Uni of Delaware
  • Gary Anderson, California State at Northridge
  • Dominick Armentano, Uni of Hartford
  • Peter Boettke, George Mason Uni
  • Thomas DiLorenzo, Loyola College, Maryland
  • Robert Ekelund, Auburn Uni
  • Lowell E Gallaway, Ohio Uni
  • Randall Holcombe, Florida State
  • Dwight Lee, Southern Methodist Uni
  • Cotton 'Matt' Lindsay, Clemson Uni
  • Fred McChesney, Northwestern Uni
  • Mark Pauly, Uni of Pennsylvania
  • Richard Stroup, Montana State
  • Mark Thornton, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • Richard Wagner, George Mason Uni
  • Bruce Yandle, Clemson Uni
Also dozens of other academics and writers who provided independent contract services to the tobacco industry — like Richard Epstein, John Goodman, Peter Huber, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Rubin, Peter Samuel, S Fred Singer. Russell Sobel, etc.

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