Richard Ebeling

Who is he: Dr. Richard Ebeling is an internationally renowned economist, author and thought leader who promotes the power of individual liberty, free-market economics and limited government. Currently, Dr. Ebeling is Professor of Economics at Northwood University in Midland, Michigan and an Adjunct Scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Before returning to academia, Ebeling was Vice President of Academic Affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation (1989-2003) and President of the Foundation for Economic Education (2003-2008).

Dr. Ebeling is the author of Political Economy, Public Policy and Monetary Economics: Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Tradition, Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays and Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom. With John Meadowcroft, Ebeling is the co-author of Ludwig von Mises.

In April 2007, Dr. Ebeling received the Franz Cuhel Award for Excellence in Free Market Education from the Liberalni Institut at the annual Conference on Political Economy in Prague. In November 2005, for his contributions advancing the case for classical liberalism, Ebeling received the Liberty in Theory Lifetime Award from the Libertarian Alliance/Libertarian International in London.

During Dr. Ebeling's tenure at The Future of Freedom Foundation, he contributed to and co-edited five books with Jacob G. Hornberger, the founder of FFF: Liberty, Security, and the War on Terrorism, The Tyranny of Gun Control, The Failure of America's Foreign Wars, The Case for Free Trade and Open Immigration and The Dangers of Socialized Medicine.

In the early 1990s, Richard Ebeling traveled to the former Soviet Union to consult with the new leaders of Lithuania and Russia on free-market reforms for socialist economies. In 1991, in Vilnius, Lithuania he witnessed the Soviet crackdown on the Baltic state's drive for independence. Hundreds were injured and at least 14 civilians died in the military attack on the Vilnius television tower after broadcasters defied state control and shifted support to the civilian freedom movement known as Sajudis.

Later in 1991 in Moscow, hard-line Communists attempted a coup, the August Putsch, to halt Soviet President Gorbachev's program to devolve certain powers of the central government to the republics. Dr. Ebeling joined citizens of Moscow who had gathered around Russia's parliament building and erected barricades to defend against an expected attack. The coup attempt failed in two days.

Traveling to Moscow again in 1996, Dr. Ebeling recovered the "lost papers" of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises from a KGB archive. The papers had been confiscated by the Nazis from Mises's Vienna apartment in 1938 and then captured by the Soviet Army in 1945. Ebeling obtained photocopies of almost the entire collection – about 10,000 items. Dr. Ebeling currently is supervising the translation and editing of the materials.

Background: Richard Ebeling was born in New York City in 1950. Ebeling earned a B.A. in Economics from California State University, Sacramento, an M.A. in Economics from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Middlesex University in London.

Before joining the faculty at Northwood University in 2009, Dr. Ebeling was the Shelby C. Davis Visiting Professor in American Economic History and Entrepreneurship at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Earlier academic experience included serving as the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College (1988-2003) and teaching economics at the University of Dallas (1984-1988) and at the National University of Ireland at Cork (1981-1983).

Dr. Richard Ebeling lectures widely in the United States, Latin America and Eastern Europe on monetary reform, privatization, free trade and economic change in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Ebeling also appears occasionally on radio and television talk shows.

Dr. Ebeling's writing has been published in The Washington Times, The Boston Globe, The Freeman, Reason, Libertarian Review, Critical Review, Political Studies, Advances in Austrian Economics, The Austrian Economics Newsletter, International Journal of World Peace, American Journal of Economics and Sociology and other journals. Ebeling's articles have been published internationally in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Panama, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.

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