- Budget & Spending
- Economic
- Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
Jon Hartley and Arthur Laffer discuss his origins as an economist, including his relationships with George Shultz and Milton Friedman, the 50-year history of the Laffer Curve, the shape of the Laffer Curve, the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on fixed investment and revenue, and much more.
Recorded on August 12, 2025.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Arthur B. Laffer is the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, an economic research and consulting firm.
Dr. Laffer’s economic acumen and influence in triggering a worldwide tax-cutting movement in the 1980s have earned him the distinction in many publications as “The Father of Supply-Side Economics.” One of his earliest successes in shaping public policy was his involvement in Proposition 13, the groundbreaking California initiative that drastically cut property taxes in the state in 1978.
Dr. Laffer was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms (1981-1989), was a member of the Executive Committee of the Reagan/Bush Finance Committee in 1984, and was a founding member of the Reagan Executive Advisory Committee for the presidential race of 1980. He also advised Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on fiscal policy in the UK during the 1980s.
In 2019, Dr. Laffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump.
Dr. Laffer currently sits on the board of directors or advisors of a number of private and public companies, including AML RightSource, ARK Investment Management, Armor Concepts, BelHealth Investment Partners, Gemini Bio, GoodCell, Gridiron Capital, NexPoint Real Estate Finance, NexPoint Residential Trust, Precision Diagnostics, Preverity, Tenth Avenue Holdings, The Service Companies, VerifyMe, VineBrook Homes Trust, and others.
Dr. Laffer has authored over twenty books, including the New York Times bestseller, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of States (Wiley 2014), and Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States, released by Post Hill Press in September 2022.
Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the UT-Austin Civitas Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon also is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami.
Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.
Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
ABOUT THE SERIES:
Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.
For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/
