Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American

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 ...

, columnist, blogger, and podcaster. He is a professor at

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. Cowen writes the "Economic Scene" column for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' and since July 2016 has been a regular opinion columnist at ''

Bloomberg Opinion Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately-held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, Charles Ze ...

''. He also writes for such publications as ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' and the '' Wilson Quarterly''. He is general director of George Mason's

Mercatus Center The Mercatus Center is an American libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. The Mercatus Center is located at the George Mason University campus, but it is privately funded and its employees are independent of the university. It ...

, a university

research center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentric ...

that focuses on the

market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a mark ...

. In September 2018, Tyler and his team at George Mason University launched Emergent Ventures, a grant and fellowship focused on "moon-shot" ideas. He was ranked at number 72 among the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" in 2011 by ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

''. In a 2011 poll of experts by ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', Cowen was included in the top 36 nominations of "which economists were most influential over the past decade".

Education and early life

Cowen was raised in

Hillsdale, New Jersey Hillsdale is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in the northern portion of Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, within the New York City metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's po ...

and attended

Pascack Valley High School Pascack Valley High School (PVHS) is a four-year comprehensive high school, comprehensive regional state school, public Secondary education in the United States, high school located in Hillsdale, New Jersey, Hillsdale in Bergen County, New Jerse ...

. At 15, he became the youngest ever

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

state

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

champion. Cowen is of Irish ancestry. He graduated from

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

in 1983 and received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in economics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1987 with his thesis titled ''Essays in the theory of welfare economics''. At Harvard, he was mentored by game theorist

Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Coll ...

, the 2005 recipient of the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

Career

Cowen argues that

free markets In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...

change culture for the better, allowing them to evolve into something more people want. Other books include ''Public Goods and Market Failures'', ''The Theory of Market Failure'', ''Explorations in the New Monetary Economics'', ''Risk and Business Cycles'', ''Economic Welfare'' and ''New Theories of Market Failure''. Among other things, Cowen has researched the economics of culture. He has written books on fame (''What Price Fame?''), art (''In Praise of Commercial Culture'') and cultural trade (''Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures''). In ''Markets and Cultural Voices'', he describes how

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

is changing the world of three Mexican amate painters. Cowen's ''New York Times'' columns cover a wide range of issues such as the 2008 financial crisis. His dining guide for the D.C. area, "Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide", has been written about by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and ''

Washington City Paper The ''Washington City Paper'' is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area since 1981. The ''City Paper'' is distributed on Thursdays; its average circulation in 2006 was 85,588. The paper's editorial ...

''. Since 2015, Cowen has hosted the podcast ''Conversations with Tyler''. He hosts the economics

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

''Marginal Revolution'', together with co-author

Alex Tabarrok Alexander Taghi Tabarrok (born November 11, 1966) is a Canadian- American economist. Tabarrok is a professor at Virginia's George Mason University and Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the school's Mercatus Center. With Tyler Cowen, he co ...

. Cowen and Tabarrok also maintain the website ''Marginal Revolution University''.

''Conversations with Tyler''

''Conversations with Tyler'' is Cowen's podcast produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason. Unlike Marginal Revolution, ''Conversations'' is hosted by Cowen exclusively. Guests are usually authors and academics, but have also included athletes (

Martina Navratilova Martina Navratilova (, ; ; born October18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, singles for 332 weeks (List of WTA number ...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ( ; born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. , April 16, 1947) is an American former basketball player. He played professionally for 20 seasons for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Associatio ...

), military personnel ( Stanley A. McChrystal), entrepreneurs (

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

, Brian Armstrong), novelists ( Emily St. John Mandel) and a homeless person from

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

named "Alexander the Grate". The show has two recurring segments: * "''Underrated/Overrated''", where guests are given a quick-fire list of cultural works or academic concepts and asked to say whether they agree with the general critical response received. * ''The uest nameProduction Function,'' where guests are asked to describe their personal productivity habits. In describing the podcast, Cowen repeatedly characterises it as "...the conversation ''I'' want to have".

Political philosophy

Cowen has written papers on political philosophy and ethics. He co-wrote a paper with philosopher

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the lat ...

arguing against the

social discount rate Social discount rate (SDR) is the discount rate used in computing the value of funds spent on social projects. Discount rates are used to put a present value on costs and benefits that will occur at a later date. Determining this rate is not alw ...

. In a 2006 paper, he argued that the epistemic problem fails to refute

consequentialism In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...

. Cowen has been described as a "

libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

bargainer" who can influence practical policy making, yet he endorsed bank bailouts in his March 2, 2009 column in ''The New York Times''. In a 2007 article entitled "The Paradox of Libertarianism", Cowen argued that libertarians "should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government. We don't have to favor the growth in government ''per se'', but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal". In 2012, David Brooks called Cowen "one of the most influential bloggers on the

right Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

", writing that he is among those who "start from broadly libertarian premises but do not apply them in a doctrinaire way". In an August, 2014 blog post, Cowen wrote: "Just to summarize, I generally favor much more immigration but not

open borders An open border is a border that enables free movement of people and often of goods between jurisdictions with no restrictions on movement and is lacking a border control. A border may be an open border due to intentional legislation allowing fr ...

, I am a liberal on most but not all

social issues A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's control. Soc ...

, and I am market-oriented on economic issues. On most current foreign policy issues I am genuinely agnostic as to what exactly we should do but skeptical that we are doing the right thing at the moment. I don't like voting for either party or for third parties". In a 2020 New Year's Day Marginal Revolution post, Cowen outlined a philosophical framework he dubbed "State Capacity Libertarianism". State Capacity Libertarianism differs from

libertarianism Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according t ...

in that it acknowledges the state's role in funding and executing

megaprojects A megaproject is an extremely large-scale construction and investment project. A more general definition is "Megaprojects are temporary endeavours (i.e. projects) characterised by: large investment commitment, vast complexity (especially in org ...

and advocates a non-isolationist foreign policy. Cowen has described himself as a liberal on most social issues and supports

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...

. After the Supreme Court issued its 2015 holding affirming the right of same-sex marriage, Cowen said that "this is exciting and very positive news. Most of all, it is a breakthrough for those people who can now marry, or exercise the choice not to marry". In July 2019, Cowen co-authored an essay in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' with Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison calling for a "new science of progress". In July 2023, Cowen joined "The Growth Commission", a non-partisan group convened by former UK prime minister

Liz Truss Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth da ...

to promote economic policies that promote growth. On Apr 28 2025, Cowen was appointed as a member of the Anthropic Economic Advisory Council, a newly formed body tasked with advising Anthropic on the economic implications of advanced artificial intelligence.

Personal life

Cowen is a teetotaler, stating he is "with the

Mormons Mormons are a Religious denomination, religious and ethnocultural group, cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's d ...

" on alcohol, later stating: "I encourage people to just completely, voluntarily abstain from alcohol and make it a

social norm A social norm is a shared standard of acceptance, acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social norma ...

Publications

Books

* ''Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World'', with Daniel Gross. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2022, , . * ''Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero.'' New York: St. Martin's Press, 2019. , . * * . * ( Wikipedia page) * With Alex Tabarrok: * * * ''The Age of the Infovore: Succeeding in the Information Economy (2010)'' * * * * * * * * * Explorations in the New Monetary Economics (1994) *