Russell Roberts is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics and the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

His latest book is The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity (Princeton University Press, 2008). Written as a novel, it tells the story of wealth creation and the unseen forces that are all around us creating and sustaining economic possibilities. He is also the author of The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance (MIT Press, 2002) and The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism (Prentice Hall, 3rd edition, 2006). The Invisible Heart explores the economics and morality of the marketplace in the framework of a novel. The Choice, a novel on international trade policy and the human side of international trade, was named one of the top ten books of 1994 by Business Week and one of the best books of 1994 by the Financial Times.

Roberts is the host of the weekly podcast EconTalk, which consists of hour-long conversations with authors, economists, and business leaders. His two rap videos, created with filmmaker John Papola and “starring” John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Heyek, have had more than five million views on YouTube, been subtitled in eleven languages, and used in high school and college classrooms around the world.

Roberts is associate editor and a founding advisory board member for the Library of Economics and Liberty, an on-line resource for economics research and education (www.econlib.org). He appears frequently on National Public Radio and often writes for the Wall Street Journal.

Roberts founded and directed the Management Center (now the Center for Experiential Learning) at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. As part of that effort, he initiated more than one hundred fee-based management consulting projects using those with masters in business administration as consultants; clients included Ford Motor Company, Emerson Electric, Monsanto, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

A three-time teacher of the year, Roberts has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He was a national fellow and visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution from 1985 to 1987. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.