Alexander Taghi Tabarrok (born November 11, 1966) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

. With

Tyler Cowen Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He hosts the economics blog ''Marginal R ...

, he co-authors the economics blog ''Marginal Revolution''. Tabarrok and Cowen have also ventured into

online education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

with ''Marginal Revolution University.'' Tabarrok is a professor at

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

and Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the school's

Mercatus Center The Mercatus Center is an American Libertarianism in the United States, libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. Located at George Mason University and directed by the American economist Tyler Cowen, the Mercatus Center works with ...

. In addition, Tabarrok is director of research for the

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

based

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

the

Independent Institute The Independent Institute is an American libertarian think tank based in Oakland, California. Founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux, the institute focuses on political, social, economic, legal, environmental, and foreign policy issues. It has more ...

. He is the son of the late mechanical engineering professor Behrooz (Bez) Tabarrok. His doctoral studies were done at

where he received his Ph.D. in 1994. He has done work on dominant assurance contracts,

law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law, which emerged primarily from scholars of the Chicago school of economics. Economic concepts are used to explain the effects of laws ...

, and

health economics Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to improv ...

. He has two sons named Connor and Maxwell Tabarrok. In 2012, journalist David Brooks called Tabarrok one of the most influential bloggers on the political right, writing that he is among those who "start from broadly

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

premises but do not apply them in a doctrinaire way."

References

External links

Tabarrok's GMU home page

Tabarrok's bio
at the

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tabarrok, Alex 1966 births Living people George Mason University alumni George Mason University faculty Canadian libertarians Canadian people of Iranian descent 20th-century Canadian economists 21st-century Canadian economists Mercatus Center