Benjamin Powell, Ph.D.

Benjamin Powell is the Executive Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, a Professor of Economics at the Rawls College of Business, and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. He is also Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Economic Association and the Association of Private Enterprise Education and Treasurer of the Mont Pelerin Society. Prior to joining Texas Tech, he taught at San Jose State University and Suffolk University.

Professor Powell's research focuses on the economics of immigration and sweatshop labor. He is the author of "Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy," co-author of "Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions," and the Amazon best-selling book "Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World." He is the editor or co-editor of five other books, including The Economics of Immigration: "Market-Based Approaches, Social Science, and Public Policy," and the author of more than 75 scholarly articles and policy studies.

Dr. Powell's research findings have been cited more than 2,500 times in other scholarly studies and reported in hundreds of popular press outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Economist. He also writes frequently for the popular press. His popular writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, and many other outlets. He has appeared on numerous radio and television shows, including Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, Showtime, and CNBC, and he was a regular guest commentator on Fox Business's Freedom Watch and Stossel.

He earned his B.S. in economics and finance from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University.