About the Authors

James D. Gwartney

gwartney

Jim holds the Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida State University, where he directs the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education. He is the coauthor of Economics: Private and Public Choice, (Cengage South-Western Press, 2015), a widely used principles of economics text now in its 16th edition. He is also the coauthor of the annual report, Economic Freedom of the World, which provides information on the consistency of institutions and policies with economic freedom for more than 150 countries.  His publications have appeared in scholarly journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Education, Southern Economic Journal, and Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics. During 1999-2000, he served as Chief Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the U. S. Congress.  He is a past President of the Southern Economic Association and the Association of Private Enterprise Education. His Ph.D. in economics is from the University of Washington. Jim can be reached at: jdgwartney@fsu.edu.

Richard L. Stroup

stroup

Rick is Professor Emeritus of economics at Montana State University and Professor Emeritus of economics at North Carolina State University. His Ph.D. is from the University of Washington. From 1982 to 1984 he served as director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Stroup has published and spoken on global warming, land use regulation, archaeology, and about needed environmental policy improvements. His research helped to develop the approach known as free market environmentalism. He is coauthor of a leading economics principles text, Economics: Private and Public Choice, now in its fifteenth edition. His book Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics and the Environment (Washington: Cato Institute, 2003), was sponsored by the Property and Environment Research Center, of which he is a co-founder. Rick can be reached at:  rstroup3@gmail.com

Dwight R. Lee 

lee

Dwight received his Ph.D from the University of California, San Diego in 1972.  Since that time he has served on the faculty at the University of Colorado, Virginia Tech University, George Mason University, and the University of Georgia where he was the Ramsey Professor of Economics and Private Enterprise from 1985-2008.  He was the William J. O’Neil Professor of Global Markets and Freedom at Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 2008-14.  He is currently a senior fellow at SMU. Professor Lee’s research has covered a variety of areas including the Economics of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Economics of Political Decision Making, Public Finance, Law and Economics, and Labor Economics. During his career Professor Lee has published over 160 articles in academic journals, nearly 300 articles and commentaries in magazines and newspapers, coauthored 14 books and been the contributing editor of 5 others. He has lectured at universities and conferences throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Central America, South America, Asia and Africa. He was president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education in 1994-95 and president of the Southern Economic Association in 1997-98. Dwight can be reached at:  leed@mail.cox.smu.edu

Tawni H. Ferrarini 

ferrarini

Tawni is the Robert W. Plaster Professor at Lindenwood University. She was the 2015 president of the National Association of Economic Educators, the inaugural recipient of the National Association of Economic Educator’s Abbejean Kehler Award, beneficiary of the 2009 Michigan Economic Educator of the Year Award and a 2009 Distinguished Faculty at Northern Michigan University.  Her work for the Council on Economic Education and reputation as a dynamic workshop leader on both the use of technology in the classroom and the integration of economics and American history helped her earn these awards. She was instrumental in helping formerly establish the Council on Economic Education – Japan and consults for the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. Dr. Ferrarini publishes in economic education, technology, and education journals. She earned her doctorate in economics from Washington University, where she studied under the 1993 Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North. For Tawni’s CV, click here.  She can be reached at tferrarini@lindenwood.edu.

Joseph P. Calhoun

Joseph P. Calhoun

is an associate teaching professor and the Assistant Director of the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education at Florida State University. He currently teaches large principles of economics classes with an annual enrollment of over 2,000 students. He regularly presents at national teaching conferences about how to effectively use media and technology in the classroom. A strong supporter of study abroad programs, he has been privileged to teach in England, Italy, and Spain. Dr. Calhoun has received numerous teaching awards including the Undergraduate Teaching Award at FSU. In 2008, he won first place in the Economics Communicators Contest cosponsored by the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Market Based Management Institute. His doctoral degree is from the University of Georgia. Joe can be reached at: jcalhoun@fsu.edu

 

 

About the Content Developers

Joab Corey

CoreyJoab served for the past seven years as a lecturer in the Department of Economics and a member of the Excellence in Economics Education faculty in the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education at Florida State University.  He is currently a lecturer at the University of California, Riverside and he specializes in teaching large section principles of economics and intro to economics classes where he uses interactive class demonstrations, video clips, pop-culture examples, student-designed economic T-shirts, and acrobatics to create an enthusiastic student learning environment.  While at Florida State University he has been the recipient of the Transformation Through Teaching award, the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society Service in Excellence Teaching Award, and the Florida State University Undergraduate Teaching Award.  He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. in Economics from West Virginia University where his teaching efforts were inspired by Professor Russell Sobel and where he won the 2008 WVU Doctoral Student Teaching Award.  Dr. Corey was also very involved as a faculty advisor of several student groups, including the FSU economics club and the FSU boxing club. Joab can be reached at: jcorey@fsu.edu

Joseph Connors

Joseph Connors

Joe is an assistant professor of economics in the Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise at Florida Southern College where he is also an affiliate faculty member of the Center for Free Enterprise. He teaches principles of micro and macroeconomics, behavioral economics, and econometrics. His research interests are how economic and political institutions impact the poor in the developing world and the political economy of rent seeking. Dr. Connors is a research fellow for The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics. He is also a co-creator of “Oikonomia: Economics for Life and Purpose,” a high school economics course for the home school market. Before his career in economics, Dr. Connors was an electrical engineer and worked for various firms in Silicon Valley. Joe can be reached at: connorsecon@gmail.com.

John Morton

John MortonMort is the senior program officer for the Arizona Council on Economic Education.  Previously, he was an economics teacher at Homewood-Flossmoor High School (Illinois), founder and director of the Governors State University Center for Economic Education (Illinois), founder and president of the Arizona Council on Economic Education, and vice president for program development for the Council for Economic Education (CEE).  He chaired the advisory board of The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition from 1991 to 2000.  Mr. Morton has written over 60 publications and books of instructional activities for the high school economics course, including four widely used textbooks and several CEE curriculum books. He is the author of Advanced Placement Economics (CEE), a widely used supplemental package for the AP Economics Course.  Mr. Morton has received several awards for teaching economics and personal finance, including the Bessie Moore Service Award and the John C. Schramm Leadership Award from the Council for Economic Education and the National Association of Economic Educators and the Freedoms Foundation Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education.  Mort can be reached at: econzone@aol.com

M. Scott Niederjohn

Scott NiederjohnScott is the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Professor of Economics at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Professor Niederjohn is also the director of Lakeland’s Center for Economic Education.  Dr. Niederjohn holds undergraduate and master’s degrees from Marquette University and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

Professor Niederjohn has published more than fifty articles, monographs, reports, and curriculum materials in journals such as Applied Economics, Monthly Labor Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, Eastern Economics Journal, Journal of Private Enterprise, and Wisconsin Interest.   Niederjohn’s research is concentrated in the areas of economic education, public policy analysis, and applied microeconomics.  He received the Governor’s Financial Literacy Award in 2011 and 2012 and 2015.  During the fall of 2013, Niederjohn was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at the University of Luxembourg. He serves on the boards of the (national) Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Business and Economics Academy of Milwaukee (BEAM). Scott can be reached at:  niederjohnms@lakeland.edu 

 

Mark C. Schug

Mark SchugMark is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and former director of the UW-Milwaukee Center for Economic Education. Professor Schug taught for 36 years at the middle school, high school, and university levels.  A widely recognized scholar, he has written and edited over 200 articles, books, and national curriculum materials.  He has been the guest co-editor of nine issues of Social Education, the flagship journal of the National Council for the Social Studies.  His latest books are Teaching Economics in Troubled times published by Routledge Press and co-edited with William C. Wood of James Madison University and Economic Episodes in American History published by Wohl Publishing and co-authored William C. Wood.  Professor Schug earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.  He has received national awards for leadership, service, and research in economic education.  He received the Governor’s Financial Literacy Award in 2011.  He serves on the board of the Business and Economics Academy of Milwaukee (BEAM). Mark can be reached at:  mschug@uwm.edu