Economist and Investment Strategist
Arthur B. Laffer is the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, an institutional economic research and consulting firm, as well as Laffer Investments, an institutional investment management firm utilizing diverse investment strategies. Laffer Associates’ research focuses on the interconnecting macroeconomic, political and demographic changes affecting global financial markets. Laffer Investments’ investment management strategies utilize some of the economic principles and models pioneered by Dr. Laffer, as well as other unique offerings managed by the firm’s portfolio management group. The firms provide research and investment management services to a diverse group of clients, which includes institutions, pension funds, corporations, endowments, foundations, individuals and others.
His economic acumen and influence in triggering a world-wide tax-cutting movement in the 1980s have earned him the distinction in many publications as “The Father of Supply-Side Economics.” One of his earliest successes in shaping public policy was his involvement in Proposition 13, the groundbreaking California initiative that drastically cut property taxes in the state in 1978.
Dr. Laffer was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms (1981-1989). He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Reagan/Bush Finance Committee in 1984 and was a founding member of the Reagan Executive Advisory Committee for the presidential race of 1980. He also advised Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on fiscal policy in the U.K. during the 1980s.
He was formerly the Distinguished University Professor at Pepperdine University and a member of the Pepperdine Board of Directors. He also held the status as the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Business Economics at the University of Southern California from 1976 to 1984. He was an Associate Professor of Business Economics at the University of Chicago from 1970 to 1976 and a member of the Chicago faculty from 1967 through 1976.
Dr. Laffer is also the author of a number of books, including The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy — If We Let it Happen, which was a nominee for the F.A. Hayek book award in 2009, and Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status, and most recently, Eureka! How to Fix California.
He received a B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1963. He received a MBA and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1965 and 1972 respectively.
