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[Policy Scholars](/experts) 

# Jeffrey Miron 

Vice President for Research

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Jeffrey Miron is vice president for research at the Cato Institute and the director of graduate and undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. His area of expertise is the economics of libertarianism, with particular emphasis on the economics of illegal drugs.

Miron has served on the faculty at the University of Michigan and as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. From 1992 to 1998, he was chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University. He is the author of [*Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition*](https://www.amazon.com/Drug-War-Crimes-Consequences-Prohibition/dp/0945999909) and [*The Economics of Seasonal Cycles*](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/economics-seasonal-cycles), in addition to numerous op-eds and journal articles. He has been the recipient of an Olin Fellowship from the National Bureau of Economic Research, an Earhart Foundation Fellowship, and a Sloan Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship.

Miron received a BA, magna cum laude, from Swarthmore College in 1979 and a PhD in economics from MIT in 1984.

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##### Featured Book 

### *[Libertarianism, from A to Z](https://www.cato.org/books/libertarianism-z)*

Libertarianism seems fairly straightforward on the surface: “Keep your government out of my bedroom and my wallet.” But how that principle applies to real-world political and economic issues is complicated. In *Libertarianism, from A to Z*, acclaimed Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron sets the record straight with a no-frills dictionary that walks us through the movement’s controversial stances on prostitution and drug use to explore issues ranging from abortion to the war on terror. He shows us how to follow those principles to their logical—and sometimes controversial—ends and how to think like a libertarian.

[Read about the Book](https://www.cato.org/books/libertarianism-z)