Robert Patrick Murphy (born 23 May 1976) is an American economist, consultant and author. He is an economist with the Institute for Energy Research (IER) specializing in climate change. He also is a senior fellow in business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute, a research fellow with the Independent Institute, and an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. In addition to economic subjects, Murphy writes about, and has presented an online video class in, anarcho-capitalism on the Mises Institute website.
Life and work
Murphy received a BA in economics at Hillsdale College in 1998 and a Ph.D. in economics at New York University in 2003. He returned to Hillsdale from 2003 to 2006, as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics. Thereafter, he moved to his current home in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was briefly employed at Laffer Investments. Currently, he is the president of Consulting By RPM, where he specializes in economic analysis for a lay audience.
Murphy has written for The Washington Times, Forbes and Barron's Magazine. Murphy's writings have also been published in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The Review of Austrian Economics, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Journal of Private Enterprise. He has written for The Freeman, The American Conservative and LewRockwell.com. He previously wrote a column for Townhall.com.
Murphy has written numerous articles for lay audiences, including study guides to works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. Murphy is author of the 2007 book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism. Murphy's Mises Institute colleague Gene Epstein wrote in Barron's Magazine that "Murphy makes a compelling case for the unfettered free market, or what his intellectual antagonists would call "free-market fundamentalism", but writes Murphy is sometimes too irreverent. Murphy's book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, published in 2009, blamed the Depression on government policies, in particular monetary policy during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, before Herbert Hoover took office.
Murphy discussed climate change and energy-related topics, on behalf of IER, in testimony before a US Congressional committee.
Murphy is a Christian, and has stated in his writings that "my ethical beliefs are informed by my Christian faith, and I am a firm believer in natural law."
Double-digit inflation predictions
In 2009, Murphy discussed various economic policies of the Bush and Obama administrations, which he called "incredible assaults on the private sector from the central government". He stated that the policies of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and President Obama would lead to double-digit inflation with high unemployment and could facilitate the abandonment of the US Dollar by the end of the Obama Presidency. Murphy warned that soaring prices for gasoline and imported products sold at Wal-Mart might be blamed by Obama Administration officials on "an attack on the Dollar by foreign speculators" and used by them to replace the Dollar with the Amero or some other currency "issued by a supranational organization". Murphy urged investors to purchase an "emergency stockpile" of physical gold and silver, and predicted double-digit inflation. In July 2009, Murphy proclaimed that the economy would be "in the toilet for a decade" and predicted "20+ percent price inflation."
In a series of articles on his personal website, Murphy states that he agreed to a bet that there would be a year/year increase in the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index of over 10% by 2013, and notes that he lost the bet.
In a column criticizing economists "who stick with their ideology no matter how badly it performs in practice", Paul Krugman noted that University of California, Berkeley Professor of Economics J. Bradford DeLong had attacked Murphy for "predicting double-digit inflation for years but remain[ing] absolutely committed to his framework" despite the predictions being unfulfilled. In December 2012 Krugman again addressed Murphy's failed inflation predictions, criticizing Murphy's belief that "his failed inflation forecast is OK" because it is attributable to "huge deflationary downdraft that offset the inflationary impact of Fed expansion." Krugman wrote that if that was true, "we should be hailing Ben Bernanke for preventing a catastrophic deflation." Murphy replied on his blog to Krugman and DeLong's criticisms, saying "my price inflation wager has nothing to do with Austrian business cycle theory" and that Krugman was using a "macro model" which does not apply to Austrian theory which relies on "heterogeneous capital goods" and artificially low interest rates distortion of investment flows into various sectors. He admitted he was not sure why his inflation prediction was wrong. In a May 2013 piece published by The American Conservative, Murphy wrote about Krugman's predictions regarding fiscal austerity and the 2013 U.S. government budget sequestration.
In 2013 Murphy challenged Krugman to a debate and unnamed supporters of Murphy promised to donate $100,000 to a charity if Krugman would debate Murphy on economic policy issues. A promotional website was established for the challenge. Krugman called the proposed debate a "public circus" and stated "Why should I dignify that totally-wrong doctrine -- that doctrine that's gotten everything wrong -- by giving them a platform?"
Books
- [1] (2002) - A short work composed of two essays on market anarchy; one discussing the production of defense services, and one describing the provision of private criminal and civil justice.
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism (April 2007) - A volume in The Politically Incorrect Guide series published by Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5969-8504-9 OCLC 79860752
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal (April 2009) ISBN 978-1-5969-8096-9 OCLC 315239348
- Lessons for the Young Economist (2010) ISBN 978-1-9335-5088-6 OCLC 681711737
- How Privatized Banking Really Works - Integrating Austrian Economics with the Infinite Banking Concept (2010) co-written with L. Carlos Lara
Notes
ArrayExternal links
- Robert P. Murphy website
- Robert P. Murphy at Institute for Energy Research: Profile
- Robert P. Murphy at Mises.org: Literature archives, Daily Article archives, Faculty Spotlight Interview: Robert Murphy
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Robert P. Murphy profile, Independent Institute
- Robert P. Murphy archives at Library of Economics and Liberty
- Robert P. Murphy archives at The Freeman website.
- Robert P. Murphy archives at The American Conservative website
- Robert P. Murphy archives at LewRockwell.com
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