The National Economists  Club
Where Economists Meet in the Nation's Capital

5/24: NEC w/ Jeffrey Miron, Harvard University

  • 24 May 2012
  • 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
  • Chinatown Garden 618 H St NW Washington DC (Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro)

Registration

  • Members of SGE, NABE and certain other groups
  • This category of registration is for our larger institutional members only for registration. Regular members of NEC please use the MEMBER category to register.
  • Current Students with ID at the door
  • Registrant is a current member of the NEC.
Registration is closed

Jeffrey Miron

Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dept of Economics

Harvard University

"An Economic Analysis of Drug Legalization"

Drug prohibition is practiced by virtually all societies, and mainstream political discussion rarely broaches the subject of drug legalization. According to standard economic reasoning, however, drug prohibition is likely to cause numerous undesirable consequences and is almost certainly inferior to alternative policies for addressing the social costs created by drug use.   This talk will present the economic arguments for drug legalization and discuss the evidence pertaining to this analysis.   An important theme will be that that even if drug consumption is undesirable – in the sense that drug consumption causes harm to innocent third parties – prohibition is probably the worst possible approach for addressing these harms.    At the same time, alternative approaches – including sin taxation, education campaigns, or subsidized treatment – have their own undesirable side effects.  Thus, it is possible if not likely that a laissez-faire approach to drug consumption is the best that society can achieve.


Jeffrey Miron is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. His field of expertise is the economics of libertarianism. He has advocated for many libertarian policies, including legalizing all drugs and allowing failing banks to go bankrupt. He has written four books including "Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition" and "Libertarianism, from A to Z." He served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University from 1992 to 1998.


http://scholar.harvard.edu/miron/jmiron/publications/budgetary-implications-drug-prohibition-0

             

Note:  Registration is open Wednesday, 5-23-10.  Anyone desiring to attend after this date will just walk in at the door, but cannot be guaranteed the lunch will be available.  (Please wait to check in until all prepaid or reserved people have checked in for seating) 



Press:  Please email :info@national-economists.org with your attendance status and the date of attendance. It will be assumed that lunch is NOT requested.   If lunch is requested, please contact me in advance, prior to the date of the event, for registration and payment instructions.
Credit Card payment is non refundable but you may substitute someone in your place for attendance.
 
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