Robin Dale Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known as an expert on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute’s Foresight Exchange and DARPA’s FutureMAP project. He invented market scoring rules like LMSR (Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule) used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson is Chief Scientist), and has conducted research on signaling.

Hanson received a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1981, an M.S. in physics and an M.A. in Conceptual Foundations of Science from the University of Chicago in 1984, and a Ph.D. in social science from Caltech in 1997 for his thesis titled Four puzzles in information and politics: Product bans, informed voters, social insurance, and persistent disagreement. Before getting his Ph.D he researched artificial intelligence, Bayesian statistics and hypertext publishing at Lockheed, NASA, and elsewhere. In addition, he started the first internal corporate prediction market at Xanadu in 1990.

He is married to Peggy Jackson, a hospice social worker, and has two children. He is the son of a Southern Baptist preacher. Hanson has elected to have his brain cryogenically preserved in the event of medical death.

He spoke to the CEC on Wednesday July 18, 2018 in his talk, “The Elephant in the Brain”

All club members and the guests at this meeting were given signed copies of The Elephant in the Brain. The club was able to get these books for the members from a grant from AIER.

Jeffrey Tucker is editorial director of the American Institute for Economic Research, a managing partner of Vellum Capital, CLO of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, economics adviser to FreeSociety.com, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, and author of eight books. In addition to 8 books, he has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

Following his 15 years as editor and builder of the website Mises.org, he rebuilt Laissez Faire Books to become a viable business, drove content and traffic at the Foundation for Economic Education, and now writes and speaks widely.

He spoke to the CEC on Wednesday March 7, 2018 in his talk entitled “The Ultimate Foundation of Blockchain Technology”.

Gerald P. Dwyer is a Professor and BB&T Scholar at Clemson University. He also is an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute and a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis at Australian National University. He was Director of the Center for Financial Innovation and Stability and Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta from 1997 to 2012 and a Professor of Economics at Clemson from 1989 to 1999.

Dr. Dwyer’s research has appeared in leading economics and finance journals, publications by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and St. Louis, and books. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Financial Stability, Economic Inquiry and Finance Research Letters. He is a past President and member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Private Enterprise Education. He also was a founding member of the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, an organization which he served as President and as Treasurer and which honored him by creating the Gerald P. Dwyer Prize in Financial Econometrics.

Gerald spoke to the CEC on Wednesday January 24, 2018. His topic was entitled, “Quantitative Easing: The Wind Up and the Wind Down”.

Marshall L. Stocker is an international investor recognized for his research on the relationships between political-economic policy and investment. With more than fifteen years of experience in the asset management industry, his perspective on policy has been sought by ministers, policy institutes, and investors in a wide-range of forums from decision-level policy discussions in Yemen to the syndicated Dennis Miller Radio show.Stocker has opined or been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and Regulation Magazine. His seminal research “Equity Returns and Economic Freedom” was published in the Cato Institute’s Cato Journal and has been cited by numerous other academic papers. In his most recent written work, “Don’t Stand Under a Tree When It Rains”, he shares his perspective on life and business during the three years he lived in Egypt amidst the Arab spring.

Stocker earned both a B.S. in engineering and a MBA from Cornell University, where he was awarded the Park Leadership Fellowship. He is also a graduate of Culver Military Academy. Mr. Stocker currently works as a global macro equity strategist and portfolio manager in Boston.

He spoke to the CEC on September 27, 2017 in his talked titled, “Economic Reform and Stock Market Performance”

Dr. Beatriz Maldonado is an Assistant Professor of Economics and International Studies at the College of Charleston. Her research in economic development and political economics has appeared in the European Journal of Political Economy, Oxford Development Studies, Applied Economics Letters, and Social Science Quarterly.

She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and later moved to Oklahoma. She studied at the University of Oklahoma where she received her B.A, M.A., and Ph.D. in Economics. She lives in Charleston with her husband Max Kovalov who teaches political science and international studies at the College of Charleston.

Beatriz spoke to the Columbia Economics Club on May 3, 2017, in her talk entitled, “Puerto Rico: Island of Enchantment and Debt”.

Katherine Restrepo is the Director of Healthcare policy at the John Locke Foundation. Before joining the John Locke Foundation, she interned at the Cato Institute under the direction of Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies. 

Katherine graduated from McDaniel College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Spanish along with a minor in Communication. She earned her master’s degree in health care administration at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is also a contributor to Forbes.

Katherine spoke to the Columbia Economics Club on January 11, 2017, in her talk entitled, “Under the Knife: Why Certificate of Need Laws Need to Be Reconstructed”.

To learn more about Katherine, please visit: http://www.johnlocke.org/person/katherine-restrepo/

Curtis M. Loftis, Jr. is the incumbent  State Treasurer for South Carolina. He was elected State Treasurer in 2010 — winning all 46 counties in his first bid for public office — and was re-elected in 2014. Mr. Loftis owns several businesses and is the founder and sole benefactor of the Saluda Charitable Foundation, a charity that operates in Ukraine, Bolivia and Haiti. He is a resident of West Columbia, SC and is a 1981 graduate of the University of South Carolina.

He is the custodian of more than $43 billion in State funds, including the state’s pension funds. He serves as Vice Chairman of the State Fiscal Accountability Authority, an executive body that provides oversight to such statewide policy matters as property, procurement and debt. He is the Chairman of the Board of Financial Institutions, which supervises state chartered financial institutions and supervises mortgage originators and lenders, finance companies, payday lenders, and title lenders, and is a member of the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission which manages the $30 billion retirement fund’s investments.

Curtis spoke to the Columbia Economics Club on October 12, 2016, in his talk entitled, “It’s All About the Billions”.

To learn more about Curtis, please visit his website.