Richard E. Wagner: An Autobiographical Sketch

While I was born in Jamestown North Dakota in 1941, I spent only two birthdays there.  I subsequently lived in several places in the Los Angeles area, and graduated from the University of Southern California in 1963.  Newly married, my wife Barbara, now a ceramic artist, and I moved to Charlottesville, where I attended graduate school at the University of Virginia, receiving my Ph.D. in Economics in 1966.  (Besides our two daughters, Barbara and I now have two granddaughters and two grandsons.)
           
            In the subsequent years, I held faculty positions at:
                        The University of California, Irvine,
                        Tulane University,
                        Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
                        Auburn University, and
                        Florida State University.

In 1988 I became the Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University.  During 1989-95 I also served as Chairman of the Department of Economics, and during 1998-2004 I served as Director of Graduate Studies, which I have been doing again since 2007.

            My scholarly writings have covered a broad range of topics on political economy and public affairs, and have resulted in more than 25 books and monographs and over 150 scholarly articles.  Here is a sample of my book and monograph titles:

            The Fiscal Organization of American Federalism
            Inheritance and the State
            Democracy in Deficit [with J. M. Buchanan]
            Public Finance: Revenues and Expenditures in a Democratic Society
            Charging for Government [Editor and Contributor]
            Public Choice and Constitutional Economics [Co-editor and Contributor] 
            To Promote the General Welfare
            Trade Protection in the United States [with C. K. Rowley and W. Thorbecke]
            Parchment, Guns, and Constitutional Order
            Taxation and the Price of Civilization
            Federalist Government in Principle and Practice [Co-editor and Contributor]
            Politics, Taxation, and the Rule of Law [Co-editor and Contributor]
            Fiscal Sociology and the Theory of Public Finance
            Mind, Society, and Human Action

            Among the journals where my professional articles have been published are the American Economic Review, the Journal of Law and Economics, Kyklos, Public Choice, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the National Tax Journal, the Policy Studies Journal, the Cato Journal, the European Journal of Political Economy, Constitutional Political Economy, the Journal of Law and Politics, the Review of Austrian Economics, Regulation, Critical Review, the Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, Public Finance Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and The American Journal of Economics and Sociology.

            I also serve in various advisory capacities to such organizations as the Public Interest Institute, where I serve as Senior Fellow and Chairman of the Academic Advisory Board, the Independent Institute, the James Madison Institute for Public Policy Studies, and the Virginia Institute for Public Policy.  I was co-editor of the scholarly journal Constitutional Political Economy from 1989 through 1997, and am currently a member of the editorial boards of Constitutional Political Economy,  the Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, and the Review of Austrian Economics.