Robert E. Wright

Robert E. Wright (b. 1969 in Rochester, N.Y.) is a business, economic, financial, and monetary historian and the inaugural Rudy and Marilyn Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He is also a research economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fomer editor of Pickering & Chatto’s Financial History and Perspectives in Economic and Social History series, and an editor for Financial History, the magazine of the newly revamped Museum of American Finance. He is also director of the Thomas Willing Institute for the Study of Financial Markets, Institutions, and Regulations and editor of Cambridge University Press's "Slavery Since Emancipation" book series.

Education and research

After graduating from Fairport High School in 1987, Wright took degrees in History from Buffalo State College, where he was a member of the All-College Honors Program, and the University at Buffalo (Ph.D., 1997). Since 2001 he has authored or co-authored six books on early U.S. financial and political history, two tomes about major corporations (Guardian Life and publisher John Wiley & Sons), a popular exposé of the economic and contractual problems plaguing the U.S. construction industry, an open Money and Banking textbook available for free on the website of textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge and a major critique of U.S. public policies related to bailouts and the banking, construction, health care, higher education, and retirement savings industries. New England Publishing Associates agents his work.

Publicity and impact

Wright's most recent book, The Wall Street Journal's Guide to the 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter, is a joint effort with Wall Street Journal reporter Simon Constable. Published in early May 2011, it has already led to several radio and one television interview featuring one or both authors. Early reviews were extremely favorable.

Fubarnomics: A Lighthearted, Serious Look at America's Economic Ills, which came out of Buffalo publisher Prometheus in August 2010, generated considerable interest, including an interview on the John Batchelor Show that aired on July 17, an appearance on the Willis Report on July 20, a review in the L.A. Times that appeared on August 27, and an interview on the Dylan Ratigan Show on September 7.

Wright’s One Nation Under Debt (formerly “Born in Debt”), was published by McGraw Hill in early 2008 and generated substantial media attention, including interviews on The Joey Reynolds Show, The Dr. Pat Show, Lou Dobb’s radio show (twice), Larry Kane’s Voice of Reason, and other outlets. Choice named the book one of the best economics titles of 2008 and the National Chamber Foundation named it "One of the Books That Drive the Free Enterprise Debate." His earlier research also won some minor awards. Wright has several books forthcoming, including an edited volume called Bailouts: Public Money, Private Profit for the Social Science Research Council, and a book on the role the real estate mortgage crisis of the 1760s played in the coming of the American Revolution discussed at length in the New York Times.

Although considered “much underrated” by some and not yet as widely known as Harvard financial and diplomatic historian Niall Ferguson, Wright is increasingly attracting the attention of mainstream media outlets as well as the blogosphere due to the unusual combination of detailed scholarship and interesting prose stylings that characterize much of his work. The financial crisis of 2008 greatly raised Wright’s profile by highlighting the importance of his research agenda, which he often summarizes in his “finance: history and policy” blog. Within a few months of the failure of Lehman Brothers, Wright appeared on David Asman’s Fox News special “Saving Our Economy: What’$ Next?,” On Point with Tom Ashbrook on NPR, and several other television and radio programs. He was also quoted in the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and several other major newspapers. He also published opinion editorials in the Los Angeles Times, Reason, McKinsey Quarterly, DismalScientist, and other publications and websites. He also recently authored a Money and Banking textbook for cutting edge publisher Flat World Knowledge.

Wright frequently collaborates with other leading scholars, including Richard E. Sylla of New York University’s Stern School of Business, where Wright taught from 2003 until 2009. Before that, Wright taught economics at the University of Virginia, where he teamed up with Virginia economist Ron Michener in a dispute against Farley Grubb, an economist at the University of Delaware, over the nature of colonial and early U.S. money and monetary systems.

Personal views

Wright is a libertarian, a deist, and such a fan of Alexander Hamilton that according to the Wall Street Journal he named one of his sons “Alexander Hamilton Was Wright,” a revelation that spurred commentary on the web. His review of Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton was written in a faux eighteenth century style and hints at Wright’s dry sense of humor.

Bibliography

• The WSJ Guide to the 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter: From Big Macs to "Zombie Banks," the Indicators Smart Investors Watch to Beat the Market (2011). ISBN 978-0-06-200138-2
• Fubarnomics: A Lighthearted, Serious Look at America's Economic Ills (2010). ISBN 978-1-61614-191-2
• Bailouts: Public Money, Private Profit (2010). ISBN 978-0-231-15055-2
• One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe (2008). ISBN 978-0-07-154393-4
• Knowledge for Generations: Wiley and the Global Publishing Industry, 1807-2007 (2007). ISBN 978-0-471-75721-4
• Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America’s Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry (2007). ISBN 978-0-226-47267-6
• Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich (2006). ISBN 978-0-226-91068-0
• The U.S. National Debt, 1787-1900 4 vols. (2005). ISBN 978-1-85196-816-9
• The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance (2005). ISBN 978-0-226-91026-0
• History of Corporate Governance: The Importance of Stakeholder Activism 6 vols. (2004). ISBN 978-1-85196-769-8
• Mutually Beneficial: The Guardian and Life Insurance in America (2004). ISBN 978-0-8147-9397-8
• The History of Corporate Finance: Development of Anglo-American Securities Markets, Financial *Practices, Theories and Laws 6 vols. (2003). ISBN 978-1-85196-749-0
• Hamilton Unbound: Finance and the Creation of the American Republic (2002). ISBN 978-0-275-97816-7
• The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered: Integration and Expansion in American Financial Markets, 1780-1850 (2002). ISBN 978-0-521-81237-5
• Origins of Commercial Banking in America, 1750-1800 (2001). ISBN 978-0-7425-2087-5