The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a

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 en ...

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-govern ...

located in

Great Barrington, Massachusetts Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, ...

. It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor. It is a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...

nonprofit.

History

Col. Edward C. Harwood was a graduate of the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

and served in the Army Corps of Engineers. In the 1920s, he began writing freelance magazine articles on economic issues. With $200 saved from selling his articles, Harwood founded AIER in 1933.

Policy positions

AIER statements and publications portray the risks of climate change as minor and manageable, with titles such as "What

Greta Thunberg Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (; born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation. Thunberg's activism began when she persuaded ...

Forgets About Climate Change", "The Real Reason Nobody Takes Environmental Activists Seriously" and "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest". The institution has also funded research on the comparative benefits that sweatshops supplying multinationals bring to the people working in them.

COVID-19

AIER issued a statement in October 2020 called the

Great Barrington Declaration The Great Barrington Declaration was an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which t ...

that argued for a

herd immunity Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or mass immunity) is a form of indirect protection that applies only to contagious diseases. It occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population has become im ...

strategy of "focused protection" to deal with the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. It was roundly condemned by many public health experts.

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the preside ...

, the infectious disease expert appointed by the White House, called the declaration "total nonsense" and unscientific.

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 ...

, a libertarian economist at

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 ...

, wrote that while he sympathized with a libertarian approach to deal with the pandemic, he considered the declaration to be dangerous and misguided. The declaration was also criticized by the

Niskanen Center The Niskanen Center is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates environmentalism, immigration reform, civil liberties, and strengthening social insurance around market-oriented principles. The center is named after William A. Niskane ...

, a formerly libertarian think tank that now calls itself moderate. AIER paid for ads on Facebook promoting its articles against government

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dis ...

measures and mask mandates. In October 2020,

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

removed a tweet by White House coronavirus adviser

Scott Atlas Scott William Atlas (born July 5, 1955) is an American radiologist, political commentator, and health care policy advisor. He is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, a conservative t ...

linking to an AIER article that argued against the effectiveness of masks.

Affiliations

AIER maintains a global network of local chapters called the Bastiat Society. It partners with the

Atlas Network Atlas Network, formerly known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States that provides training, networking and grants for libertarian, free-market, and conservative groups ...

and other groups.

Funding

AIER owns American Investment Services Inc., an investment advisory firm whose fund was valued at around $285 million in 2020. The fund includes holdings in a wide range of companies, but holds a majority of its assets in diversified

exchange-traded fund An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout th ...

s and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

investments. In 2020, about 14% of its investments were in information technology and telecom companies including

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

and

Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and se ...

, about 6% in electric and gas utilities, 5% in

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...

companies including

Chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...

and

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 3 ...

, and 2% in food, alcohol, and tobacco stocks, including

Mondelez International Mondelez International, Inc. ( ), often styled Mondelēz, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates in ...

and Philip Morris International. Over half of AIER's funding comes from its investments, but it also receives contributions and foundation grants. In 2018 it reportedly received US$68,100 from the Charles Koch Foundation, approximately 3% of AIER's revenue for the year. It has partnered with Emergent Order, a public relations company also funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. In 2019 the American Institute for Economic Research had total assets of $184,901,564.Funding details as of 2019:

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Great Barrington, Massachusetts Political and economic think tanks in the United States Economic research institutes Research institutes in Massachusetts Libertarian think tanks Think tanks established in 1933 1933 establishments in Massachusetts