Robert L. Bradley Jr. (born June 17, 1955) is CEO and founder of the

Institute for Energy Research The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that, according to itself, conducts research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains ...

(IER). An expert in the history and political economy of energy and energy corporations, Bradley is a senior fellow at the

American Institute for Economic Research The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a libertarian think tank located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. History ...

(AIER), as well as Energy and Climate Change fellow of the

Institute of Economic Affairs The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a right-wing pressure group and think tank registered as a UK charity Associated with the New Right, the IEA describes itself as an "educational research institute", and says that it seeks to "further t ...

in London.

Biography

Bradley grew up in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. He graduated from

the Kinkaid School , motto_translation = Light through Knowledge , established = , type = Independent elementary school and secondary school , gender = Co-educational , us_nces_school_id = , head = Jonathan Eades , head_name = Head of School , ad ...

in 1973. He received a B.A. in economics from

Rollins College Rollins College is a private college in Winter Park, Florida. It was founded in November 1885 and has about 30 undergraduate majors and several graduate programs. It is Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institution. History Rollins Colle ...

, where he received the S. Truman Olin award for the top student in economics. He attended Rollins on a full athletic scholarship and was captain and MVP of the men's tennis team in 1977. He went on to receive a master's degree in economics from the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

in 1980 (thesis: "Interpretations of the Wicksellian Idea") and in 1985 a Ph.D. in political economy (with distinction) from International College, Los Angeles, where the chairman of his dissertation committee was Murray Rothbard. He spent the summer of 1977 in residence at the Institute for Humane Studies in Menlo Park, California, studying with Austrian-school economists, including Rothbard and Nobel Laureate

F. A. Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, Jurisprudence, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical lib ...

Career

Bradley spent nearly 20 years in the business world, including 16 years at

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. ...

, where for the last seven years he was corporate director for public policy analysis and speechwriter for Kenneth L. Lay. His opposition to the company's so-called "green" energy policy is recounted on his web site PoliticalCapitalism.org. He has been a senior research fellow at the

and at the Center for Energy Economics at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. He received the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award in 2002 for his work on free market approaches to energy sustainability. He is the author of eight books on energy history and policy, including ''The Mirage of Oil Protection'' (1989); ''Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience'' (2 vols.: 1996), which has been called "a landmark in regulatory studies"; ''Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability'' (2000); ''Climate Alarmism Reconsidered'' (2003); and (with Richard Fulmer) ''Energy: The Master Resource'' (2004), which

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

described as a "splendid" book that "effectively debunks the widespread predictions of energy doom." Bradley has edited two autobiographies: ''Done In Oil'' by

J. Howard Marshall II James Howard Marshall II (January 24, 1905 – August 4, 1995) was an American billionaire businessman, academic, and government official. He was involved with and invested in the petroleum industry via academic, government and commercial ende ...

(Texas A&M University Press, 1994) and ''Everyone Wins! A Life in Free Enterprise'' by Gordon Cain (

Chemical Heritage Foundation The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center. It was fo ...

, 1997). Bradley is writing ''Political Capitalism: A Tetralogy'', a business history and business best-practices book which documents the rise and fall of Enron. His first book, ''Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy'' (2009), was followed by ''Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies'' (2011) and ''Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years, 1984–1996'' (2018)''.'' The final volume, ''Contra-Capitalism: Enron and Beyond'', is planned for publication in 2026, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the company's fall. In late 2008, Bradley founded the free-market energy and climate change-denying blog MasterResource. As of January 2014, it was ranked a top twenty-five 'green blog' by Technorati.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Robert L Jr 1955 births Living people University of Houston faculty American libertarians Austrian School economists Cato Institute people The Kinkaid School alumni University of Houston alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty