Robert Eric Wright (born January 1, 1969 in Rochester, N.Y.) is a business, economic, financial, and monetary historian and the inaugural Rudy and Marilyn Nef Family Chair of

Political Economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

at Augustana University in

Sioux Falls Sioux Falls ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 117th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County. The population was 192 ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

. He is also a research economist at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic co ...

Education

After graduating from Fairport High School in 1987, Wright took degrees in History from

Buffalo State College The State University of New York Buffalo State University (colloquially referred to as Buffalo State University, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo State, or simply Buff State) is a public college, public university in Buffalo, New York. It is part of ...

, where he was a member of the All-College Honors Program, and the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

(Ph.D., 1997).

Research

Since 2001, he has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited twenty books on topics including banks and

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

book publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

corporations A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

, corporate genealogy, and

corporate governance Corporate governance refers to the mechanisms, processes, practices, and relations by which corporations are controlled and operated by their boards of directors, managers, shareholders, and stakeholders. Definitions "Corporate governance" may ...

economic indicators An economic indicator is a statistic about an economic activity. Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance. One application of economic indicators is the study of business cycles. Economic in ...

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

, government bailouts,

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...

and

monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability (normally interpreted as a low and stable rat ...

, public

debts Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money Loan, borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Co ...

public policies Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. T ...

, and securities markets. Wright's writings include a book on the role the real estate mortgage crisis of the 1760s played in the American Revolution. Wright is a board member of Historians Against Slavery, an NGO. He edits its books series with Cambridge University Press, "Slaveries Since Emancipation," and serves on HAS's public speakers bureau. He is also associated with the Museum of American Finance. Wright taught at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Stern School of Business The Leonard N. Stern School of Business (also NYU Stern, Stern School of Business, or simply Stern) is the business schools, business school of New York University, a private university, private research university based in New York City. Founded ...

from 2003 until 2009. Before that, Wright taught economics at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, where he worked with Virginia economist Ron Michener in a dispute against Dr. Farley Grubb, an economist at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

, over the nature of colonial and early U.S.

and monetary systems.

Selected bibliography

Books

* * * * * * * Wright, Robert E.; Sylla, Richard E. (2015). ''Genealogy of American finance''. New York: Columbia University Press. . * Wright, Robert E. (2017). ''Poverty of slavery: How unfree labor pollutes the economy''. Palgrave Macmillan .

Book chapters

* Wright, Robert E. (2012). "Capitalism in Early America: Rise of the Corporation Nation." In Gary Kornblith and Michael Zakim, eds., ''Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of Nineteenth Century America''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. .

Journal articles

* Wright, Robert E.; Kingston, Christopher. (2010) "The Deadliest of Games: The Institution of Dueling," ''Southern Economic Journal'' 76, 4:1094-1106.

News articles

* *

References

External links

Robert E. Wright

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Robert E. Augustana University people Living people 1969 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers People from Rochester, New York University at Buffalo alumni Historians from New York (state) American male non-fiction writers