Mark Skousen
Mark Andrew Skousen is an American economist and writer. He currently teaches at Chapman University, where he is a Presidential Fellow at The George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. He has previously taught at Columbia Business School, Mercy College, Barnard College, and Rollins College.
Early life, education and family
Skousen was born on October 19, 1947, in San Diego, California, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He earned his B.A. and Master's degree in economics from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University in 1977.Skousen, like his family, is a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conservative political commentator and survival strategist Joel Skousen and linguist Royal Skousen are his older brothers, and W. Cleon Skousen, the late conservative author, was his uncle. Skousen and his wife, Jo Ann, and their five children have lived in Washington, D.C.; Nassau, Bahamas; London, England; Orlando, Florida, New York City and Orange, California.
Career
Skousen was an economic analyst for the CIA from 1972 to 1975. He later worked as a consultant for IBM and Hutchinson Technology, and other companies. He was a columnist for Forbes magazine from 1997 to 2001, and has contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal as well as to various libertarian periodicals. He has been a speaker at investment conferences and has lectured for think tanks, From 2008-2010 he was a weekly contributor on CNBC's Kudlow & Company and has also appeared on C-SPAN Book TV and Fox News.Skousen has been the editor of the Forecasts & Strategies financial newsletter since 1980. He also is the editor of four trading services and publishes the Investor CAFÉ weekly electronic newsletter.
Economics
Mark is the chief proponent of Gross Output, an economic concept used to measure total economic activity in the production of new goods and services in an accounting period. Skousen introduced the concept in his work, The Structure of Production in 1990. Based on Mark's work in this area, the Bureau of Economic Analysis has begun publishing GO in April 2014. The press release and the data are published every quarter along with GDP.Lecturing
Skousen has lectured on economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Barnard College at Columbia University, Mercy College in New York, Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and Chapman University in Orange, California. In April 2005, distance education provider Grantham University renamed its online School of Business "The Mark Skousen School of Business." He currently teaches at Chapman University and has been named a "Presidential Fellow" at Chapman University from 2014 to 2017.Books and writings
Skousen's books include: The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy ; High Finance on a Low Budget, co-authored with his wife Jo Ann; Economics on Trial ; Scrooge Investing ; The Making of Modern Economics named the 2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and #2 in the "Top Ten Must Read Books in Economics" by the Ayn Rand Institute; Vienna and Chicago, Friends or Foes? ; The Big Three in Economics ; EconoPower: How a New Generation of Economists Is Transforming the World ; and the free market textbook Economic Logic. His latest books are "Maxims of Wall Street: A Compilation of Financial Adages, Ancient Proverbs, and Worldly Wisdom", a collection of famous sayings of Wall Street, and "A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street", which applies the basic concepts of the Austrian school of Mises, Hayek, and Schumpeter to the investing and high finance.Awards and recognition
- 2018, Skousen was awarded a Triple Crown in Economics by Steve Forbes for his work in economic theory, history and education.
Economic and political activities
Presidency at FEE
Skousen served as president of the free market nonprofit Foundation for Economic Education from 2001 to 2002.Skousen's brief tenure as president of FEE ended on a controversial note when he resigned in late 2002 at the request of the organization's Board of Trustees. This move followed Skousen's decision to invite, as keynote speaker for FEE's annual Liberty Banquet, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani proved to be an extremely unpopular choice among many of the organization's board members as well as several prominent libertarians.
FreedomFest
During his tenure at FEE, Skousen launched a non-partisan, libertarian conference, then titled "FEEFest," which premiered in Las Vegas in 2002. The goal was to bring all think tanks, organizations and people who are concerned about liberty, personal freedom, civil rights, free market principles and economic freedom, to meet and discuss important issues of the day. After Skousen left the presidency at FEE, the conference continued as "FreedomFest," first under the purview of Young America's Foundation, and later, under Skousen's own direction and ownership. The conference has grown to attract thousands of people each year, and focuses on issues of geopolitics and domestic politics, global economics, investing and personal finance, free markets and entrepreneurship, health and healthcare, education, arts and literature, science and technology, history, and philosophy. The conference is popular in the libertarian political movement. FreedomFest also houses the Anthem Film Festival, the world's only libertarian film festival, directed by Jo Ann Skousen.Written works
Academic books- The Structure of Production
- Economics on Trial Translated into Japanese.
- Dissent on Keynes, editor
- Puzzles and Paradoxes in Economics, co-authored with Kenna C. Taylor Translated into Korean and Chinese
- Economic Logic. Fourth Edition includes chapters on macroeconomics and government policy, as well as microeconomics with Carl Menger's "theory of the good" and the profit-and-loss income statement to explain the dynamics of the market process, entrepreneurship, and the advantages of saving. Translated into Chinese by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press
- The Making of Modern Economics Winner 2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Now in its second printing; translated into Chinese, Turkish, Mongolian, Spanish and Polish
- The Power of Economic Thinking Translated into Chinese by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press
- Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes? A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics Translated into Chinese
- The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen Regnery Publishing has also published in paperback the original Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, edited with a new introduction by Mark Skousen, as Vol. I and The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin as Vol. II
- The Big Three in Economics: Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes
- EconoPower: How a New Generation of Economists Is Transforming the World Translated into Korean & Portuguese
- High Finance on a Low Budget, co-authored with Jo Ann Skousen
- The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy
- The Investor's Bible: Mark Skousen's Principles of Investment
- Secrets of the Great Investors, editor, audio tape series, narrated by Louis Rukeyser
- The New Scrooge Investing ASIN B000QCTONQ
- Investing in One Lesson
- Maxims of Wall Street
- A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street
- "Saving the Depression: A New Look at World War II," Review of Austrian Economics, 1987, vol. 2, No. 1
- "A Review of the New Palgrave," Review of Austrian Economics, 1988, vol. 3, No. 1
- "The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives vol. 11, No. 2, 137–152
- "GO Beyond GDP: Introducing a New National Income Statistic,"
- "What Drives the Economy: Consumer Spending or Saving/Investment? Using GDP, Gross Output and Other National Income Statistics to Determine Economic Performance," Backgrounder, 2004, Initiative for Policy Dialogue,
- "Gross Domestic Expenditures : The Case for New National Aggregate Statistic", 2012, a working paper at University College of London
- "The Great Depression," The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics, ed. Peter J. Boettke. Hants, England: Edward Elgar, 1994
- "Financial Economics," The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics, ed. Peter J. Boettke. Hants, England: Edward Elgar, 1994
- "Say's Law, Growth Theory, and Supply Side Economics," Two Hundred Years of Say's Law, ed. Steven Kates. Hants, England: Edward Elgar, 2003