Robert M. Whaples (born 1961 in

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

) is a professor of economics at

Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...

. He is also the co-editor of ''

the Independent Review ''The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering political economy and the critical analysis of government policy. It is published by the Independent Institute, a conservative li ...

''.

Education

Whaples graduated from the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in 1983 with B.A.'s in economics and history, and received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. His Ph.D. thesis, "The Shortening of the American Work Week: An Economic and Historical Analysis", won the Allan Nevins Prize from the

Economic History Association The Economic History Association (EHA) was founded in 1940 to "encourage and promote teaching, research, and publication on every phase of economic history and to help preserve and administer materials for research in economic history". It publi ...

Career

Whaples began teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1988. He moved to Wake Forest University in 1991, and was chair of the economics department there from 2006 to 2013. He has served as book review editor of EH.Net since 1996 and was director of EH.Net from 2003 to 2008. He has argued that the United States penny should be eliminated, an argument he has supported with a study he conducted regarding the effects of eliminating the penny on prices. In 1995, he conducted a survey of economists regarding the effects of

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

's New Deal policies on the Great Depression, and found that they were almost evenly split regarding whether his policies "served to lengthen and deepen" the Great Depression.

Personal life

He and his wife, Regina, have five children (two sons and three daughters).

Surveys

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whaples, Robert M. Living people 1961 births German emigrants to the United States 21st-century American economists Wake Forest University faculty University of Maryland, College Park alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni William Jessup University alumni