USA

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.

OPINION ONLY

Professor Richard McKenzie was a major member of a cash-for-comments network set up by the tobacco industry to provide themselves with a secret cabal of academic lobbyists in the various states. He also regularly moved between universities, and he was constantly on the take in providing support for numerous poisoning and poluting industries.

The Tobacco Institute's network of university professors were willing to write letters-to-the-editor and opinion-editorials on behalf of the tobacco industry, and appear as 'independent witnesses' and testify at local ordinance ('smoking bans' and 'excise tax') hearings to present, what essentially was the tobacco industry's case ... but always as an 'honest opinion of an independent expert academic'. In doing this, they exploited the credibility of other university academics and the good name of their own universities. McKenzie also played the "I am not a smoker" hand. which was believed by the tobacco industry to establish that his motives were above reproach.

Tobacco lobbyist James Savarese and Professor Robert Tollison of George Mason University collaborated in the 1980s to provide the tobacco industry, through the Tobacco Institute, with a couple of networks of academics in various disciplines who would be willing to write and sprout propaganda material ... always provided the payments for these services were not directly traceable back to the Institute or to any of the cigarette companies.

Some were paid a retainer, but most were only paid for results. The idea was simply that these academic 'sleepers' would be available on a cash-for-services basis, when needed, to counter attempts to increase excise taxes or to ban public smoking ... or just to appear as 'independent experts' at Congressional hearings. They were to promote the industry causes in a way not obvious to the casual observer.

Economist were by far the most useful of the acolyte academics because the distinction between economics and politics was never clear: so support of the cigarette companies could always be portrayed as support for free-market economics including the rights of individuals to make public choices (ignoring the problem of addiction) ... and of promoting smaller government (discounting the need for excise taxes) ... or even the support for the first Amendment to the Constitution (the right for cigarette companies to advertise).

The economist working for Savarese, always claim to be 'independent' 'professionals' and ' academics', and they exploited the fact that they came from some credible university. They never revealed the source of their funding in their op-eds or letters-to-the-editor.

If ever put under cross-examination, they must be able to claim (with weasel-word imprecision) that they had "never received a penny from the tobacco industry". Therefore all payments were laundered, either through tobacco industry lawyers ( usually Covington & Burling),) the principle organisers James Savarese & Associates, or through Bob Tollison's Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University.

The aim was to have, in each State, at least

• one academic economist,
  
• one academic lawyer, and
  
• one academic from a business management, business law, marketing or advertising discipline

The academics were always expected to wave their own and their university's credentials vigorously, and loudly proclaim their "independence' from any crass-commercial motives. And those who could boast of being 'non-smokers' were especially prized — since without this addiction, their non-dependent-on-tobacco status was thought to be proved beyond any doubt!

Unfortunately, it worked.

Some key documents

• A Business Studies/Economics Professor from Idaho University, the Washington University at St Louis, Missouri, and University of California, Irving, and later Clemson University, North Carolina

See his Jan 1988 C/V

1942 Mar 7: Born Raleigh North Carolina

1962–72: Assistant Professor of Economics, Radford College

1964: BS (Business Administration) from Pfeiffer College in North Carolina

1967: MA (Economics) from University of Maryland

1972: PhD from Virginia Tech

1972–77: Professor of Economics Appalachian State University

1976–77: Research Associate, Center for the Study of Public Choice, Virginia Tech
[Before Tollison and Buchanan shifted it to George Mason Uni] (First temp appointment)

1978: Professor of Economics at Clemson University (still holding this position in Jan 1988 despite numerous leaves of absence)

1979: Published Restrictions on Business Mobility: A Study in Political Rhetoric and Economic Reality. Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1979.

1982: Bound to Be Free. Stanford, CA; Hoover Institution and Stanford University Press, 1982.

1982: >> 1988 (until at least the time of the CV): He was a joiner of right-wing think-tanks who paid their fellows and advisors to produce pro-free-enterprise materials.

• Senior Fellow in Economics, The Heritage Foundation.
• Fellow and Adjunct Scholar, The Cato Institute
• Board of Economic Advisors Competitive Economy Foundation
• Board of Economic Advisors, Citizens for a Sound Economy.
• [Supposedly] on Advisory Board of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

1982 Jan: (Temporary) Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Public Choice, Virginia Tech [Before Tollison and Buchanan shifted it to George Mason Uni] (Second temp appointment)

1983 Jan 12: " Testimony on a Federal Jobs Bill," Hearings. Subcommittee on Employment and Productivity of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee,

1983 Feb: (Temporarily) Chair of Private Enterprise, University of Idaho.

1984: Fugitive Industry: The Economics and Politics of Deindustrializatlon. San Francisco: Pacific Institute for Public
    Policy Research and Ballinger Publishing Co.,

1984: A Blueprint for Jobs and Industrial Growth. Washington, DC: Richard B. McKenzie, ed. for the Heritage Foundation.

1984 Feb 14: Associate Press article from the Heritage Foundation "Heritage Foundation Urges Liberalized IRAs" It quotes McKenzie as both an author and as a Professor of Economics at Clemson University.

A conservative study group whose work is monitored closely by the Reagan administration is calling for liberalized Individual Retirement Accounts as a first step toward replacing the income tax with a tax on consumption.

    In "A Blueprint for Jobs and Industrial Growth," the Heritage Foundation proposed 42 other measures, including lower taxes on corporations, eventual repeal of capital-gains taxes, a minimum-wage freeze and replacing unemployment benefits after 26 weeks with loans.
[This virtually left excise taxes as one of the only real sources of further government funds... which was the exact opposite of his later arguments for the tobacco industry.]

    The foundation, whose 1980 research has been a major force in the Reagan administration, developed the blueprint to respond to Democrats who are urging an "industrial policy" under which the government would take a bigger hand in allocating resources among industries.

    "We believe government controls of markets too frequently have diverted people's efforts from the productive activities of saving, working and investing, toward lobbying government for protection from competition and subsidy handouts," Richard McKenzie, who directed the research, told reporters Monday.

    McKenzie, a professor at Clemson University, said the goal of the project has been to find areas in which the government hinders the free-enterprise system. Government programs, he added, would "do nothing to solve the root problems of declining economic growth, but instead contribute to them."

• tolls to pay for road infrastructure
• cut unemployment benefits - loan them money
• reduce minimum wage
• bring labor unions under anti-trust laws
• repeal excise taxes on 'gas guzzling cars ' - drop fuel-economy standards.
• create a market in the 'right to pollute.'

1985: Competing Visions: The Political Conflict Over America's Economic Future. Washington: Cato Institute, 1985.

1985–86: The Center for Policy Studies at Clemson University appeared to be publishing studies by the cash-for-comments economists, McKenzie, Shughart, Tollison, Kimenyi, Yandle, Matt Lindsay, Maloney, McChesney, Staaf. Laband — and others not apparently in the network.

1985–86: on leave from Clemson University. He is the John M Olin Visiting Professor at the Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University in St Louis.
[Heavily funded by tobacco]

1985 June 10:: Maureen Delanty (O&M)'s May Monthly Report lists her activities for the Tobacco Institute as.

• Briefly discussed with Pete Sparber use of economic consultants to promote Chase Econometrics' study of the tobacco industry. Once study is available, we would like to review and prepare recommendations for this project.
  [Chase Econometrics did both a general and numerous State-specific studies, custom-designed to produce the results the tobacco industry wanted.]
• Briefly discussed with you use of economic consultants on public smoking issue. We should discuss some target states so we can make recommendations and get started on this project.
• Delivered brochure on health care financing. We also printed stationery for Committee on Taxation and Economic Growth for cover letter signed by Bob Tollison. Distribution list is being compiled and brochure will be mailed as soon as possible.
• Continued to prepare op-ed articles on tax reform and work with area economists to place in newspapers in home districts of members of House Ways & Means and Senate Finance Committees.
• With Fred Panzer and Jim Savarese, coordinated Bob Tollison and Richard Wagner's responses to OTA on the earmarking of cigarette excises for health care financing.
• Arranged for Citizens for Tax Justice and Hal Hochman, professor at City University of New York, to testify before Representative Rangel on the taxation of low-income wage earners. This involved coordination of testimony with the subcommittee and making final revisions on Hochman's statement.

1985 Dec: /E President Ronald Reagan asked Senator Bob Packwood, chairman of the US Senate Finance Committee, to design a proposal for comprehensive tax reform

which would reduce the highest individual income tax rate down to 35% from its current 50% level, but retain adequate incentives for business investment, and avoid inclusion of any new taxes.

    In an attempt to do this without reducing the total amount of tax revenue that is currently collected, the Packwood plan proposes to offset reduced revenues from income taxes by what the Wall Street Journal has referred to as a "backdoor increase in excise taxes."

    The Packwood plan proposes to eliminate the income tax deductibility of excise taxes and import tariffs paid by businesses [and it] would increase federal excise tax receipts by an estimated $75 billion over five years. Approximately $13 billion of this would be a result of a direct increase in excise taxes on motor fuel, wine, distilled spirits, and tobacco.

1986 Feb 24: Craig Barnes (TI Media Relations department) memo to William Kloepfer at the Tobacco Institute about the use of various Chase Econometrics studies [See below] which have been done in a number of states to produce data which is guaranteed to support the industry lobbying.

    The Media Relations department had been enlisted to support the Issues Management division which normally ran the economists network. They were to make direct contact and conduct briefings with journalists and editors of most of the major newspaper and broadcasting outlets and feed them information derived from the relevant Chase study done in their area.

    These 'Chase' economic studies were customised to suit the tobacco industry's requirements and were conducted in the various states when legislation or local ordinances threatened. Sometimes one of the network economists would be included in the Chase team (certainly the following press briefing) to give it more credibility. Barnes advised Kloepfer that:

In an approved revision of the plan it was decided that including a state economist in the briefings created too large a briefing team and that we would counter subsequent anti's criticism more effectively by using the economists for op-ed pieces. The approved revision has been followed.
[They prefer to leave the economists underground so they can pretend to be 'independent commentators' and not raise suspicions that they are employed by the tobacco industry.]

    [Inclued] A list of the economic consultants who have completed and submitted Chase op-ed articles.

ACTION: Such op-ed pieces have been completed and pitched in each market we've entered so far.

• St. Louis — Richard McKenzie, Washington University
• Baltimore — David Laband, University of Maryland

The following drafts have been recieved and, with minor revisions, are ready to go.

• Chicago — Henry Butler, University of Chicago
• Houston — same
• New York — Michael Crew, Rutgers University
• Atlanta — Dwight Lee, University of Georgia
• Philadelphia — Jack Militello, Wharton

Chase Econometrics = BULLSHIT

1986 Feb 26: Richard Wagner wrote a private note to his friend Robert Tollison. Here is a draft copy of my op-ed piece on the Chase bullshit.     There is some really wacko stuff in that model: increased employment increases wages, but wages have nothing to do with employment; higher wages increase inflation, but inflation has nothing-to do with wages, and money has nothing to do with inflation. Inflation has nothing to do with interest rates. And....     At any rate, I can live with the enclosed essay or some modestly revised version of it, but there is no way I can get any deeper into multiplier effects, interindustry flows, and the like [They were promoting a series of faux-economic impact studies on the effects of smoking bans which were done for the Tobacco Institute in specific cities, by Chase Econometrics.]

Chase Econometrics Studies

1986 May 19: Scott Stapf at the Tobacco Institute sent to Peter Sparber a "Final report on the Chase Econometrics project." It detailed the successes of the 'Chase Campaign' Press promotion: City press tours of Sacramento, Columbus, Albany (failed in New York City) Florida still to come. Letters to the Editor being generated through field staff and TI media team members. Economists op-eds (using Chase data) through the Savarese network Smaller business publications Major industry trade releases (Doremus & Co) Labor publications (they have briefed Ms Jacobsen) Materials production - all printed and readied for distribution (including slide show)

1986 Mar 11: One cash-for-comment economist (Prof. Allen Dalton) later wrote:

On March 11 of this year Republican Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, presented the latest proposal for tax code revision. This proposal, while correcting many special-interest, growth-depressing aspects of the recently passed House Democratic plan, also includes massive political payoffs to special interests combined with a massive hidden tax increase.

    In order to finance this multi-billion dollar giveaway and remain faithful
    to the President's call for revenue-neutral tax reform, the Packwood plan seeks
    to increase the most regressive, most inefficient, most anti-production, most
    anti-competitive, most anti-democratic tax in the tax code: federal excise taxes (by $13 billion)

1986 Mar 20: Tobacco Institute document: Background Update Of the Estimated Effect of the Packwood Tax Plan On the Price Increase Necessary For Cigarettes

If the deductibility of the excise taxes is eliminated, then most, if not all, of this tax increase will be passed on to tobacco consumers as price increases to cover the additional corporate taxes they will be required to pay, plus the indexed excise tax requirement.

    On the basis of 1985 sales, and the level of federal excise taxes paid on cigarettes, the level of taxable sales would be: $4.5 billion / $0.16 = 28.125 billion packs — the remainder are either sent overseas as exports or to armed services, or to government institutions.

    If the Packwood plan is adopted, and if the effective tax rate on tobacco corporations is 35 percent as in 1983, the increase in corporate income taxes would be about $1.83 billion.

    It must be assumed that this tax increase will be passed on to consumers in order to maintain net income. This will cause a decline in demand on the base level of 28.125 billion packs.

1986 March 20: /E Copies of the letters that the cash-for-comments economists wrote to various newspapers editors, and also the ones they wrote to their Senators — none of which mentioned that they'd been paid by the Tobacco Institute to write both the op-eds and the Congressional letters. These were sent to the Tobacco Institute as proof of their activities:

    Newspaper clippings of some of the network members' published articles for this project are grouped here:

[Printed versions]

• Joseph Jadlow, Tax reform Hidden excise boost hurt consumers...
• Allen Dalton, Hidden taxes gut Reagan reform plan.
• Charles Maurice, Packwood proposal picks our pockets.
• Scott Atkinson, Packwood Tax Reform Bill Threatens Wyoming Economy.

• Allen Dalton, Tax Revision: Reform or Fraud.
• Thomas F Pogue, Senator Packwood's Proposal is Not Tax Reform.
• Richard B McKenzie, Excise Taxation: A Misguided Solution to the Federal Governments Fiscal Woes.
• Terry Anderson, Tax Reform We Don't Need.
• Michael Crew, Tax Reform Hides Massive Excise Tax Increases: Senator Packwood Is Too Clever by Half.
• JJ Bodewyn, Taxwise, We are going to be had.
• Anne Harper-Fender, The Packwood Tax Plan: Reform or Expediency.
• Scot Atkinson, Packwood Tax Reform Bill Threatens Wyoming Economy.

1986 Apr: /E James Savarese has circulated these instructions to his stable of cash-for-comment economists. He is asking them to write to the House Ways and Means Committee members in their states, and include a copy of their op-ed articles.

    He provides stamped and addressed envelopes, and strict instructions for what the letter should say:

Contents of your letter to the member

• Opposition to consumption taxes, especially federal excise taxes, and in particular alcohol and cigarettes (you may list others if you wish).
• Opposition to any tax increase as part of the budget reconciliation process; i.e., the need to comply with Gramm-Rudman target of $145 billion deficit limit. This deficit target should be reached with spending reductions.
• However, if the tax reform package that ultimately emerges generates some windfall tax revenues during the first year, FY 1987, these should take the place of any other tax increase that might be considered. (For your information, most analysts believe that the Packwood version of the tax bill is revenue neutral over a five year period, but that it raises between $15-$20 billion during the first year.
• One tax bill per year is more than enough. Whatever tax bill (if any) passed will create enormous uncertainty among the taxpaying public. The last thing that taxpayers — as investors, consumers, etc. — need is another tax bill one month after the major reform bill is passed.

1986 Apr: The Tobacco Institute was shopping for witnesses willing to appear before the Senate Finance Committee to testify against the Packwood tax plan. Along with industry people and a few professional lobbyists, they had managed to get

"some 17 economists in states with Members on the Senate Finance Committee are now in the process of requesting to be heard"

• Barry Poulson, Uni of Colorado
• Richard McKenzie, Washington Uni - St Louis
• Michael Crew, Rutgers Uni
• JJ Boddewyn, City Uni of NY
• Joseph Jadlow, Oklahoma State Uni
• William Mitchell, Uni of Oregon
• Ann Harper-Fender, Gettysburg College
• Robert Tollison, George Mason Uni

1986 Apr 1: An Open Letter to Senator Robert Packwood (by Wm Mitchell) has been sent to the network economists to help them write their articles. This is a checklist of those in the 1) Writing Stage 2) Submitted to Newspapers 3) Letters Written to Senators.

    Richard McKenzie, as a dutiful cash-for-comments participant, has written the article but he has not sent the letters to Senators. He has attached a copy of the article which has been sent back to the Tobacco Institute.

1986 April 1: Professors Joseph M Jadlow (Oklahoma) and Charles Maurice (Texas A&M) have prepared draft articles attacking the Packwood Tax Plan. James Saverese has sent them, together with clippings of articles already published, along to Fred Panzer at the Tobacco Institute for correction and clearance. (See page 10)

    It lists many dozens of articles which the cash-for-comment economist on the network have now written, including one:

MISSOURI:
Prof. Richard McKenzie
      Submitted to Paper: 43/27/86 —St Louis Post-Dispatch
Current Status:[none]
Letters to Senators: Sanforth and Eagleton on 3/27/86

[Note: His later C/V fails to mention this work for the Tobacco Institute. At the time he was at Washington University in St Louis churning out monographs and pamplets which were published by right-wing think-tanks]

1986 Apr 11: The Tobacco Institute plans for State-by-State actions to generate opposition to the Packwood Tax Plan.

1986 Apr 15: Jim Savarese is reporting to Fred Panzer at the TI about the Packwood Excise Tax Plan project. He includes numerous letters sent to Senators, copies of published op-eds, and a revised/rewritten op-ed for Maine and one for Minnesota, He lists the successes of the network economists, including:

MISSOURI,
Prof Richard McKenzie
[Submitted to] St Louis Post-Dispatch 3/27/86
[Letters sent to Senators] Danforth and Eagleton 3/27/86

We have contacted the following people and have asked them to request to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on April 21, 1986. As of today, no one has been asked to testify, but here is the current status.

• J.J. Boddewyn, New York - called and wrote [CUNY]
• B. Poulson, Colorado - called and wrote
• Michael Crew, New Jersey - called and wrote [Rutgers]
• William Mitchell, Oregon - called and wrote [Uni of Oregon]
• Richard McKenzie, Missouri - called and wrote [Washington Uni, St Louis]
• Ann Harper-Fender, Pennsylvania - called and wrote [Gettysburg College]
• Joseph Jadlow, Oklahoma - called and wrote [Oklahoma State]
• Robert Tollison, Virginia and D.C. - called and wrote [George Mason]
• John Howe, Kansas - previous commitment
• Terry Anderson, Montana - previous commitment
• Lee Anderson, Delaware - previous commitment

We will check back with these people daily to see if they have heard anything and I'll let you know as soon as we are successful.

1986 Apr 17: Citizens requesting to testify before the Senate Finance Committee in opposition to excise tax provisions of the Draft (Packwood) Tax Reform Bill.

    This long list of tobacco lobbyists, unionists, and political think-tank players is divided by state and includes a number of economists from the cash-for-comments network.

• Barry Poulson, University of Colorado
• Richard McKenzie, Washington University at St Louis
• JJ Boddewyn, City University of New York
• Michael Crew, Rutgers University
• Joseph Jadlow, Oklahoma State University
• William Mitchell, University of Oregon
• Ann Harper-Fender, Gettysburg College
• Robert Tollison, George Mason University

1986 Apr 22: Kloepfer at the Tobacco Institute writes to his staff.

One of our most serious problems is the continued generation of critical articles by the national news media.

    Effective today, Craig Barnes will focus on that challenge. To make this action possible, we have asked Scott Stapf to serve as acting director of the traveling media relations group. Both Craig and Scott will report to Pete Sparber.

• Participated in the press damage control operation at the Council of State Governments' ETS hearing in Boston.
• Attended media planning session with Gray Robertson, Susan Stuntz, Peter Sparber, Dave Senay, Paul Johnson, to outline new campaign for Robertson.{Healthy Buildings International]
• Meeting with Peter Sparber and lawyers, AMA issues.
• Attended meeting with Peter Sparber, Anne Duffin, and Lynn Snodden, HYD [Helping Youth Decide] demonstration project.
• Prepared memorandum for Chase [Econometrics] consumption figures for Rick Martin, Insight.
• Prepared memorandum on ETS to Richard McKenzie, Washington Times.
• Prepared remarks for AMA ad-ban debate taping for Tobacco College.

1986 May 14: Richard McKenzie's article "A Clash of Rights Over Smoking: People Should Be Free To Assume Health Risks Posed By Tobacco And Hang Gliding" has been published in the St Louis, Post Dispatch. A large side-bar by GS Buell is labelled "Stop Harassing Smokers."

    This copy has been sent to the Tobacco Institute.
[He is still at the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University, apparenlty still on leave of Clemson University]

1986 May 16: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes a Letters page attacking the McKenzie article headed "Smoking Is Hazardous To Society's Health." with the strongest coming from EB Fisher Jr, Associate Professor of Psychology and Preventive Medicine, Washington University of St Louis (where McKenzie was in temporary residence.]

In their separate May 14 Commentary page articles, R. B. McKenzie and G. S Buell illustrate well the fallacies of defending cigarette smoking through the rhetoric of free will and civil liberties.

    The fallacies are disturbing in two senses. First, they are an affront to concern for civil liberties and for those serious threats to individual rights. Second, their continued promulgation encourages people to underestimate what the surgeon general has termed "the chief, single, avoidable cause of death in our society and the most important public health-issue of our time."

Fallacy No. 1: People are free to smoke or not to smoke. If that is the case, why is it that 90 percent of adult smokers would like to quit but find themselves unable to do so? Smoking is addictive.

Fallacy No. 2: Smoking is one's own business. Until recently, we thought this was true. However, we now see striking evidence to the contrary. Nonsmoking wives of smokers are more likely to die of lung cancer than are nonsmoking wives of nonsmokers. Children of smoking parents show byproducts of nicotine in their blood and are more likely to suffer pneumonia and bronchitis than are children of nonsmoking parents. The smoker can no longer claim to be socially benign.

Fallacy No. 3: If you don't die of smoking, you'll die of some other habit. McKenzie, in his article cited above, likened the risk of cigarette smoking to those of "fatty meats, sugar-filled soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, hang gliders, salty peanuts and used automobiles." Similarly, Buell likened the risks of smoking to those of salt, coffee and "Snickers." Such equations are harmful.

Responsible health professionals encourage their smoking patients to quit as the most Important thing they can do to protect their health

1986 May 19: Peter Sparber at the Tobacco Institute has received a "Final Report on the Chase Econometrics project" from Scott Stapf. The main points:

• Successful press tours were held in Sacramento, Columbus, Albany, Tampa, Jacsonville (New York failed)
• Letters to the Editor were generated by TI field staff
• Economists' op-eds

  Final versions of op-ed pieces using Chase data were completed in March for St. Louis, Miami, Sacramento, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, New York and Columbus. The op-eds are being promoted by Savarese.
  
      The attached commentary submission by economist Richard B. McKenzie appeared in the May 14 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The New York op-ed is being redirected for release in conjunction with the June 25-27 media campaign in Albany.

• Smaller business publications.

  A national version of the Chase press release and an accompanying computer-personalized letter went out in March to 200 business editors,

1986 May 22: James Savarese has written to his cash-for-comments economists requesting that they now...

... produce a follow up letter to the members of the House Ways and Means Committee in your state. You will note that we are asking that you send this correspondence by Tuesday, May 27, to the home district offices of these members.

    You should refer to your correspondence with the state's Senators and attach copies of your OP-EDs that were placed. In the event that your OP-ED has not yet been placed, please attach it and mention one newspaper to which it has been sent.

Contents of your letter to the member:

• Opposition to consumption taxes,
• Opposition to any tax increase as part of the budget reconciliation process;
• One tax bill per year is more than enough.

1986 Dec 11: James Savarese sends Fred Panzer at the Tobacco Institute a summary of the activities of his network of economists. This is effectively the beginning of the main phase of the cash-for-comments economists network.

Dear Fred,
    I have attached a list of all the economists we have used along with the projects they have worked on in behalf of the Tobacco Institute.

• GSA = Government Services Administration.
• 'Ways & Means' = Congressional committee on finances
• ALEC = American Legislative Exchange Council (a formalised way for big business to directly influence Congressional and State politicians)
• Chase Econometrics = A company that did economic impact studies for the tobacco industry in various locations to 'prove' that smoking bans would destroy local economies.
  
      The references for this network member were:

Missouri [ Region VIII ]

Professor Richard McKenzie

Center for Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, 314-889-5657

Services rendered:
• Packwood
• Chase [Economtrics study]
• Ways and Means letter writing campaign

1987 Apr: The Displaced Worker Problem: How Large Is It? St. Louis: Center for the Study of American Business, Washington
    University, April 1987.

1987 Apr 17: Savarese to Panzer re Senate Finance Committee Testimony:

I have enclosed a copy of the letter that Bob Tollison received from the Senate Finance Committee in regard to his request to testify before the committee on April 21.

    Most of our economists have received the same letter. Here's the way it looks now

• B. Poulson, Colorado — no word as yet
• R. McKenzie, Missouri — rejected
• M. Crew, New Jersey — rejected
• J.J. Boddewyn, New York — no word as yet
• J. Jadlow, Oklahoma — no word as yet
• W. Mitchell, Oregon — rejected
• A. Harper-Fender, Pennsylvania — rejected
• R. Tollison, Virginia and D.C. — rejected

1987 July: - Sept Articles by McKenzie. He appears to be now back at Clemson University.

• How Minimum Wages Reduce the Living Standards of All Covered Workers (Washington: National Chamber Foundation, July 1987).

  Richard McKenzie and Curtis L. Simon of Clemson University, predicted that raising the minimum wage would lead to a loss of 750,000 jobs by 1990 and 1.9 million fewer jobs by 1995.
  
      It also concluded that many of the job losses would be in the services sector and retail trade, and that most job loss would occur among teenage workers. Manufacturing employment would also be adversely affected if the minimum wage was raised, and states such as California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Illinois would experience major job loss.
  

• Mandated Benefits: The Firm as the Social Agent of the State. (Washington: National Chamber Foundation, July 1987)
  [The president of the NCF was J Paul Sticht, Exec.Chm. of RJ Reynolds Tobacco. It was heavily funded by tobacco.]
• Jobilism: The New Theology of Public Policy (Clemson Uni, SC and the Strom Thurmond Institute, Fall 1987).
• "The Emergence of. the Service Economy: Fact or Artifact?" Policy Analysis (Washington: Cato Institute, Fall 1987).

1987 Aug 15: An article in the National Journal "Plant Closure Law's Political Dynamite" quotes McKenzie as a fierce opponent of the proposed requirement for businesses, about to close down plants, to give their workers advanced notice of job terminations. He is supporting the position of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) which was opposed to mandatory consultations with unions, advanced warnings and possible retraining assistance.

Most major European competitors of the United States have laws requiring plant closing notification, but it isn't at all clear that the lessons of those laws are applicable here. It also isn't clear what those lessons are. The evidence on the European experience, said Clemson University economist Richard B. McKenzie, who was a [Labor Secretary Bill] Brock task force member and is a vocal opponent of notification laws, is mostly anecdotal — as it is with plant closing laws generally

LABOR
The Displaced-Worker Problem: How Large Is It?

    Studies by the Labor Department and the General Accounting Office that buttress arguments for a new policy to aid workers whose skills are no longer in demand are founded on data that can "misinform and mislead public decision makers," asserts Clemson University economist Richard B McKenzie.

    Many people who advocate federal involvement in labor-management relations "have ignored the inevitable tradeoff involved in providing special termination benefits to workers."
Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, Campus Box 1208. St. Louis. Mo. 20 pages. Free.

LOBBYING     STRANGE ALLIANCES
The tobacco industry has been reaching out to groups with which it ordinarily has little in common and taking advantage of their support to deflect the spotlight from its own strong economic interest.

1987 Sep:

1987 Dec: /E Annual Report of Citizens for a Sound Economy lists a number of cash-for-comments Professors of Economics as an Academic Advisors of their Foundation, or on their Board of Directors.

• Dom Armentano, University of Hartford
• Robert Tollison, George Mason Uni (Center for Study of Public Choice)
• James Buchanan, George Mason University
• Richard McKenzie, Clemson University
• Jennifer Roback (Center organiser) George Mason Uni
• Richard Stoup, Montana State University
• Walter E Williams, George Mason University

1987 Dec: "The Impact of Airline Deregulation on Highway Safety," Occasional Paper (St. Louis: Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, December 1987).

1988: The American Job Machine by Richard B. McKenzie, (New York, NY: Universe Books, 1988).

1988 Jan: The Proposed Minimum Wage Increase: Job Destruction State by
    State (Washington: National Chamber Foundation, January 1988).

1988 Jan: McKenzie's Revised CV set to the Tobacco Institute says he was then a Professor of Economics at Clemson University. He was a close associate at this time with Professor Bruce Yandle, also a cash-for-comment network economist.

    His bibliography shows that:

• he co-authored papers with (or for) cash-for-comments economists: Wlliam Shughart, Bruce Yandle, Robert E McCormick, Robert Staaf, Doreles Martin, Dwight Lee, James Gwartney, Thomas DiLorenzo, Gordon Tullock
• he promoted material by James Buchanan and Richard Wagner, while attacking Ralph Nader and John Maynard Keynes.
• he published through some highly-dubious think-tanks and institutes like: Heritage Foundation, National Chamber Foundation, Cato Institute, Strom Thurmond Institute, Institute for Economic Affairs (UK), Council for a Competitive Economy, Fiscal Policy Council, Reason Institute, Pacific Institute, Young America's Foundation
• he focussed on tobacco-funded academic institutes like the Center for the Study of American Business (Washington University), the Center for the Study of Public Choice (GMU and Public Choice Society) , and the Center for Policy Studies (Clemson University).
• He also wrote extensively for the newspapers and popular magazines.

1989 Mar 30: Dwight Lee's report and papers from an "Issues and Taxation" session which was organised for the Southwestern Social Science Association meeting in Little Rock Arkansas. Lee reported that:

Three papers were presented, one each by Dwight R. Lee of Washington University, St. Louis; Richard McKenzie, Clemson University; and David Gay, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

    Discussants were Edward Price, Oklahoma State University; Richard Wagner, George Mason University.

    The session was attended by approximated 20 people, and enough time was left over for several questions and comments

1989 May 25: Savarese reports to the Tobacco Institute on expenses involved in their Phase II of the Social Cost Research Project. McKenzie is owed $810 for airfares, hotel, meals, mileage and parking.

    A further $18,500 has been billed as payment for the economists who appeared at the Southwester Social Science Association meeting.

1990 Jul: /E This is a 92 page file of multiple documents. Philip Morris has accumulated a list of:

• Hotels around the world - some offering no-smoking rooms. [Pages 2 to 19]
  
  
• Spokespeople [Pages 20 to 42]
  • ETS (Passive smoking dangers)
    • In the UK they have 17 scientists/consultants with some 'credibility' to comment. Some are medical doctors (who will only offer support in certain occasions)
    • In Denmark they have one medical doctor with TV experience.
    • Sweden has three - two doctors and one toxicologists
    • Finland has a doctor and a professor of respiratory medicine.
    • [See also Germany, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France, USA, and Spain]
  • IAQ (Mainly on promoting increased ventilation rates to clear smoky air),
    • In the UK they have 15 scientists/consultants (four are medical doctors and 4 are toxicologists). Others include pharmacologists, professor of public health, occupational hygenists, ventilation engineers, architects
    • Also see Sweden, Greece, France, Switzerland/Belgium Egypt, Italy
  • Sick Building Syndrome (a junk-science fear of Legionella they were promoting)
    • Seven in UK will promote the fears of SBS. Also Sweden, France, Greece, Egypt
  • Workplace smoking (trying to block office smoking bans)
    • Reuse the scientists listed above.
  • Tobacco Advertising (claiming it as a constitutional right.)
    • They have three in the UK, four in the Netherlands, two in Germany and one each in Denmark, France and Belgium
  
  
  
• Media [Pages 42 to 68]
  • Pan-European media backgrounds
    • circulation figures, editors names, etc.
  • Health and science correspondents on pan-European publications
    • Eleven health/science journalists
  • Aviation correspondents on pan-European publications
    • Fifteen aviation and travel journalists from the major publications in Europe
  • Sympathetic European columnists.
    • A long list of European, UK, France, Italy, Swizerland, Netherlands, Australia and the USA 'sympthetic' columnists and their publications.
    • In the UK Bernard Levin, Auberon Waugh and Richard Evans, are the most prominent (they both worked for the tobacco industry numerous times)
    • In the USA, many names stand out including Richard McKenzie (supposedly of St Louis Dispatch) and anti-smoking activist Elizabeth Whelan (who lobbied for the chemical and advertising industries)
  • Visiting journalists to Neuchatel [Philip Morris's Swiss headquarters]

1990 Aug 30: Ending the Free Airplane Rides of Infants: A Myopic Method of Saving Lives by Richard B. McKenzie and Dwight R. Lee (for the Cato Institute)

1990 Nov: Executive Alert of the National Center for Policy Analysis has the headline story "Babies vs. the FAA" which claims

Under the banner of saving children's lives, a movement is afoot that would nullify many benefits of airline deregulation by effectively ending free air travel for infants and toddlers.

    To save the life of one infant, an FAA rule may cost 60 lives and $72 million.

1990 Nov 27: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that only exists to permit industries and large corporations to financially influence legislators, is running a conference with the help of a $5,000 contribution from the Tobacco Institute.

    Richard McKenzie is slated to speak on Oil Pricing with two petroleum industry lobbyists — just ahead of four tobacco lobbyists speaking on Indoor Air (Gray Robertson, John Fox, Larry Holcombe and Harold Burnley) as part of the "Issue Workshop".

1990 Dec: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)'s "The State Factor" newsletter, has an entire edition written by Professor McKenzie. It has been edited by Jerry Taylor [Science Director at Cato Institute; associate editor Regulation magazine; and writer for Wall Street Journal.]

    It defends the petroleum industry: "Gasoline Costs: Market Pricing — Not Price Gouging."He also concludes that support for the Bush-US Gulf War attack on Saddam Hussein was needed to to free up the international oil business.

Contrary to critics, there has been much social value derived from allowing the markets to work their will. Controls on markets can do nothing but exacerbate the country's economic problems brought on by the Middle East incursion.

    This is not a defense of petroleum interests. It is a call for cool thinking in troubled and emotional times.

1991 Mar 21-22: The Tobacco Institute has a draft (and also a later final) program for Cato Institute's Washington DC conference "Making Sense of Safety".

At that time the tobacco industry and some other major polluters had come to realise the media benefits of promoting the pseudo-science of Risk Assessment and Management as a way to hamstring the EPA, OSHA and FDA.

    The leader ot this 'risk assessment' push in the USA was John D Graham of the Harvard School of Public Health and his Center for Risk Assessment. Other conference speakers included in these lists were also tobacco academic or commercial lobbyists: W Kip Viscusi (Duke Uni); Aaron Wildavsky (UofC, Berkley); Michael Gough (OTA and TASSC); Alan Katzenstein (Tobacco Institute); Paul Rubin (Emory Uni & consultancy); Margaret Maxey (TASSC & Uni of Texas); Sam Kazman (CEI); Lester Lave (TASSC & Carnegie Mellon); Albert Nichols (Nat. Econ. Research Assn.)

    Most of the speakers on the draft and final agenda were tobacco lobbyists or long-term secret industry consultants, Alan Katzenstein was a statistical consultant who worked almost exclusively for the Tobacco Institute at this time. Cash-for-comments economist Richard McKenzie had been drafted to speak on "Airline Safety".

The early draft program sent to Philip Morris shows that the tobacco
lobbyists were locked in early, while the others changed.]

    Final Program

1991 July: Airline Deregulation and Air-Travel Safety: The American Experience by Richard B McKenzie, (St Louis, Mo.: Washington University, Center for the Study of American Business, July 1991).

1991 July:

1991 July 1: The (tobacco-funded) National Center for Policy Analysis has put out a press release: "Study: Government in Retreat Because of Mobility of Capital, Labor"

Governments find that reducing the burden of government is one of the most effective ways to compete for capital and labor, said the report, written by economists Richard B. McKenzie of the University of California at Irvine and Dwight R. Lee of the University of Georgia.

    "Capital is not so much concrete and steel as it once was," said McKenzie. "Financial capital travels around the world on an electronic highway at the speed of light. And human capital - brainpower - can work almost anywhere with computers and telephone modems."

    "Those countries that tax capital and labor will inevitably experience a diminishing tax base unless they provide services that are worth more to taxpayers than the taxes government takes," the report said. "Those countries that try to impose regulations will find fewer activities left to regulate unless the benefits of regulation are greater than the burdens the regulations impose."

    McKenzie and Lee recently wrote Quicksilver Capital: How the Rapid Movement of Wealth Has Changed the World, a book dealing with the same subject.

1991 Sep 9: Policy Magazine (Center for independent Studies) publishes The Only Failure We Have to Fear Is the Fear of Failure by Dwight R. Lee, Richard B. McKenzie.

Socialism has been, by any measure of economic success, a total failure.

1992: The Value of Part-Time Workers to the American Economy: How Mandated Benefits Will Undercut the Welfare of Part-Time Workers by Richard B. McKenzie, (Washington, DC: Employment Policies Institute, 1992).

1992 Mar 18: James Savarese writes to the Tobacco Institute attaching a reprint...

of Dwight Lee's paper, "Government v. Coase: The Case of Smoking." This paper is a product of the seminars and research projects which were commissioned over the past couple of years.

1993: The Cato Institute's "Regulation Magazine" is advertising.

Failure and Progress: The Bright Side of the Disnal Science by Dwight R. Lee and Richard B. McKenzie.

    The authors, both economists, argue that government cannot mitigate economic failure without also eliminating opportunities for success. Unless economic failure is understood as integral to the success of market economies, society will transfer resources from its most productive sectors to its least productive ones, and society wil] be worse off.
1993 163 pp. $19.95 cloth $10.95 paper

1993 Jan 28: Michael Fumento at the Investor's Business Daily has written an article for the tobacco industry "Is EPA Blowing Its Own Smoke ? How Much Science Is Behind Its Tobacco Finding ?"

    In the same newspaper, is an advertisement for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) which is selling a book published by the Pacific Research Institute [an Atlas Network think-tank] written by Richard McKenzie "What Went Right In The 1960s" He argues that America never had it so good as when President Reagan gave tax cuts to the rich, and greed was allowed free rein.

1993 Feb 9: Fred Smith who runs the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) writes to thank Philip Morris for helping them raise $765,000 in pledges. This will enable the CEI to break into the $1 million budget range this year and move to new offices. They are also creating an Environmental Education Project and an Environmental Studies Program.

CEI, as many of you know, has moved its research activities aggressively to the state level, working with free market groups to explore creative alternatives to the rigid regulatory policies promoted by the federal government. Jonathan Adler has directed this work (to date, largely in the environmental field) and has now produced two reports on urban air pollution, "Reforming Arizona's Air Pollution Policy," in conjunction with the Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research and a more recent report, dealing with hazardous waste disposal regulations with the South Carolina Policy Council, "Hazardous Waste Regulation in South Carolina."

    Finally, CEI has recently released a policy paper, "Ecology as Religion: Faith in Place of Fact," by Doug Bandow [who worked directly for the tobacco industry - also via the Cato Institute] that addresses the religious nature of many modern environmental policies. This paper will provide one of the background papers for a projected conference on "Religion and the Environment" to be held later this Spring.

1994 Feb 24: Walter Woodson to Sam Chilcote at the Tobacco Institute about...

"the EPA/ETS economic numbers and the Canadian tax situation."

Bill [Oczechowski] and I continue to work with [politician/lobbyist] Charlie Whitley, Brennan Dawson [TI PR] and other TI staff, member company tax and ETS experts and consultants, Covington & Burling attorneys, TI's consultant economists, allies within organized labor and others to address these concerns.

Our goal is to refute the claims of the EPA. The benefit and cost methods used by EPA is so flawed that is useless.

    Our greatest challenge lies in refuting the costs to non-smokers that allegedly arise due to ETS. The estimated benefits [of non-smoking] are based on the alleged economic cost of reduced life expectancy due to exposure to ETS. It would appear that EPA has probably used conventional cost inflators in their analysis.

    Our best opportunity to set the record straight resides in assembling a group of economists to assess and address the claims of EPA. This idea stems from my discussions with Jane Gravelle, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) senior economist who is currently doing a tobacco tax study. She was appalled by the research methods used in the original EPA analysis and considered their work to be very weak - to say the least. We will, of course, use the CRS study when it is released next month.

    Our approach would run along two lines: discredit the research methods used in the original EPA studies and critique its application to the workplace. As Jane Gravelle put it, the statistical methods used in the original EPA study are similar to the methods used by economists. Economists call it econometrics and epidemiologists call it biometrics. In either case, the same statistical standards would be used.

    We will ask a group of economists to inspect the statistical method employed. We hope to assemble a good group of economists that would reject the study and have the same reaction as Jane Gravelle. Since costs and benefits seem to be the new focus of EPA it would appear that this is a proper domain for economists.

We are attempting to interest economists and groups that are normally critical of EPA in general but have not been associated with tobacco issues in the past. Murray Wiedenbaum, formerly a member of the Committee of Economic Advisors (CEA) in the Reagan Administration, is president of the American Business Enterprise Center in St. Louis. His group focuses on the high costs of government regulation and often is critical of government studies. Dwight Lee spent a year there as a resident scholar. I also am looking into contacts at the American Enterprise Institute for economists.

    The free market economists and groups also may help. Bob Tollison has good contacts with Bob Ekelund and the Auburn University econometricians that have done work for us in the past — notably a study of smoking and days lost from work. He also could group together other economists that could write op-eds for us.

    I am working with Fred Smith's Competitive Enterprise Institute. They have been heavily critical of EPA in the past. They recently gave their annual research award to Michael Fumento. Fumento also wrote an article (1/28/93) in the Investor's Business Daily that criticized the ETS science.

    Finally, the [Alexis] De Tocqueville Institute is considering a project that would analyze four or five recent EPA studies that were poorly designed. One of the studies would include the original ETS work. They are at the exploratory stages of the project and recently have asked me for the names of economists to help them.

1994 May 17: The Tobacco Institute has commissioned the Alexis de Tocquville Institute to hire S Fred Singer, Kent Jeffreys and a number of their cash-for-comments economists to produce a long report attacking the EPA's risk assessment procedures (not just on tobacco), trying to label them as purveyors of junk-science.

Bill Orzechwski at the Tobacco Institute is writing to Cesar Conde.[who, at this time he was co-director of the AdTI with Jack Kemp; shortly after he became Executive Director].

1. FINAL DRAFT. Signed off by [Fred] Singer, [Kent] Jeffreys, and AdTI executives. [We would] Welcome review by your lawyers — but please keep edits to a minimum — major changes will have to be re-approved by the authors and AdTI executives.
2. Includes language and stylistic changes you suggested regarding references to health risks from smoking.
3. Also beefed up the cost benefit section with excerpts from Bob Tollison's testimony.
4. The authors will try to move the completion date for overall study (including sections on chlorine, Superfund, and Radon) from June 15 to June 6 — but it is going to be very difficult. Again, I entered into an arrangement for completion dates based an the conversation you and Margaret had during lunch a few weeks ago. It is extremely difficult to keep accelerating these completion dates because Singer/Jeffreys have other committments built around this project's completion date.
5. Academic and Science Advisory Board: Do what you can to get Tollison, etc. (also I need some more scientists, epidemiologists, etc.) I approach the following people —
   • Michael Darby, Professor of Economics UCLA
   • Michael Boskin, AEI
   • Thomas Hopkins, Professor of Economicas, Rochester Inst, of Technology
   • Kip Viscusi, Duke University
   • Richard McKenzie, University of Cal.
   • Ken Chilton, CSAB, Washington University
   Let's shoot for 10 people — but I think six good names would be sufficient.

1997: "The Paradox of Progress" by Richard McKenzie (Oxford, 1997)

1997 Jul 15: Richard McKenzie has written yet another op-ed on tobacco for the Los Angeles Times (which syndicates it): "Tobacco Deal: Legal Mugging By Government" This is at the time when the Master Settlement Agreement was being negotiated.

The tobacco companies now will pay dearly for their past economic sins. The claim of the state attorneys general and plaintiffs' lawyers who brought suits is straightforward: The tobacco industry caused hundreds of billions of dollars in health care expenditures. It should be held responsible for the financial drain that smoking has caused. Smokers are unwitting "victims" of tobacco company exploits.

• I do not smoke and never have, and I have no tie to the tobacco industry.
• I have no problem with the charge that smoking impairs health. But that doesn't mean that I and other reasonable Americans must drop our policy scruples and blindly accept the plaintiffs' claims. Clearly, the tobacco companies have contributed to the poor health of smokers.
• Chocolate and potato chip companies, very likely have hastened the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
• Granted, smoking is addictive to some degree, but that doesn't mean that individuals can shift all responsibility for their health problems to the tobacco companies.
• True, many people start smoking when they are teenagers, when, perhaps, their judgment may be impaired. But that doesn't mean that teenagers should not share responsibility for the damage they do to themselves.
• By allowing "society" to pick up part or all of the health care costs of smoking, the federal and state governments have lowered the cost of smoking and have encouraged smoking.
• The attorneys general are attacking the tobacco companies for a simple reason: They are an easy target. The attorneys don't have the political guts to go after the smokers with equal ferocity.

1998: Managing through Incentives. How to Develop a More Collaborative, Productive, and Profitable Organization. by Richard B. McKenzie and Dwight R. Lee.

Incentives are the most powerful tools executives can use to improve worker performance. This is particularly true in today's empowered workplace, where incentives can ensure that workers apply their initiative toward company goals. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Richard McKenzie and Dwight Lee show how to select the right incentives and how to use them for best results.

1998: Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century by Richard B. McKenzie Politics and Society, University of California, Irvine University of California, Irvine

. The current child welfare system is flawed, operating to the detriment of tens of thousands of children. Foster care, intended to act as a temporary solution, has become inadequate permanent care. While adoption is a solution for some children, many children are difficult to place or legally unavailable for permanent placement. Editor Richard B. McKenzie contends that the resurgence of private orphanages or children's homes will become an option for those children.

1998 Jan 1: RJ Reynolds is circulating newspaper cuttings of interest to the industry.

Richard B. McKenzie, a professor in the Graduate School of Management at UC Irvine, writes in the Charlotte Observer in opposition to a proposed "fat tax" as well as taxing cigarettes.

"Hold your fire on tobacco. A Yale University psychology professor has identified a far more serious and widespread threat to public health...the `toxic food environment' that has made obesity a public plague....

    There is an old and reliable way by which Americans can be induced to consider the consequences of their own bad habits: have them pay a greater share of their own medical costs by cutting Medicare and Medicaid subsidies.

    It's time for Congress to recognize that its past policies have been sending the wrong signals to American consumers. Likewise, supporters of a cigarette or fat tax should consider that freedom is of little value if people don't have the right to do their own thing, for good or for bad.'

1998 Feb: /E Roy Marden of Philip Morris, who manages the 'donations' paid to think tanks and commissioned academics, has put together a 133-person "Third Party Message Development Contact List"

    It has the names of journalists, think-tank organisers, university professors, etc. who can be relied on to support the tobacco industry position (provided the appropriate money changes hands) Those directly associated with Richard McKenzie (UofC Santa Barbara) are:

• Cash for comments / academics and economists:
  • Tom DiLorenzo Loyola University (Baltimore);
  • Dwight Lee University of Georgia
  • Rick Stroup, Exec Dir. Political Economy Research Center
  • Norm Ture, President,Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation
  • Jim Bennett and Walter Williams (Economists), + Richard Fielding (Law and Economics Center), George Mason University;
  • Murray Weidenbaum, Director, Center for the Study of American Business
• Think tank associates:
  • Ed Lazear, Les Lenkowsky, Milton Friedman, Tom Sowell, Hoover Institution
  • Pete duPont, John Goodman, Barry Asmus, Peter Ferrara. National Center for Policy Analysis
  • Doug Bandow, David Boaz, Brink Lindsey, Ed Crane, Bill Niskanen, Mike Tanner, Cato Institute
  • Joe Bast, Rick Rue, The Heartland Institute
  • Mac Carey, President, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
  • Steve Hayward, Mark Davis. Lance Izumi, Sally Pipes, Pacific Research Institute.
  • Chris DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute
  • Fred Smith, Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Media:
  • Wes Pruden Editor Washington Times
  • Jacob Sullum, Editor, Reason Magazine
  • Paul Weyrich, President. National Empowerment Television

2004: Predictably Rational?: In Search of Defenses for Rational Behavior in Economics By Richard McKenzien (Springer)

2004 July 27: Washington Times: Minimum wage turnabout type. Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and a nationally syndicated columnist. [The NCPA is tobacco funded] has recommended a book: "Times Change: The Minimum Wage and the New York Times" by economist Richard McKenzie "for those curious about this case of editorial apostasy." He would like to see the minimum wage at zero.

• Heavy! The Surprising Reasons America Is the Land of the Free - And the Home of the Fat

  America's emerging "fat war" threatens to pit a shrinking population of trim Americans against an expanding population of heavy Americans in raging policy debates over "fat taxes" and "fat bans." These "fat policies" would be designed to constrain what people eat and drink — and theoretically crimp the growth in Americans' waistlines and in the country's healthcare costs.
  
  Richard McKenzie's HEAVY! The Surprising Reasons America Is the Land of the Free —And the Home of the Fat offers new insight into the economic causes and consequences of America's dramatic weight gain over the past half century. It also uncovers the follies of seeking to remedy the country's weight problems with government intrusions into people's excess eating, arguing that controlling people's eating habits is fundamentally different from controlling people's smoking habits.

  [The obvious question is "Which industry commissioned this book?"]
• In Defense of Monopoly: How Market Power Fosters Creative Production by Richard B. McKenzie and Dwight R. Lee.
• Getting Rich in America: A few Easy Rules to Follow by Richard B. McKenzie and Dwight R. Lee. (Jan 1998)

2009: Economic Therapy: Comforting Pointers for Turbulent Times by Richard B. McKenzie

Turbulent times can be good times for economists. The main reason is that many people need help understanding the sources and consequences of the daily disheartening financial and economic news, as well as the pontifications of political leaders who suggest that, unless they are given power to distribute trillions of dollars in bailout and stimulus packages, economic Armageddon may be imminent.

2011 Dec: An Economist's Guide to Dieting and Burning Calories

How to burn off all those holiday calories? Economist Richard B. McKenzie recommends 10 counterintuitive ideas to make calories more expensive and exercise more valuable in the New Year.

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