
John D. Mueller
The Lehrman Institute Fellow in Economics
John D. Mueller is the Lehrman Institute Fellow in Economics and Director of the Economics and Ethics Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Mueller specializes in the relation of modern economic theory to its Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman origins, its practical application to personal, family, and political economy, and the interaction of economics, philosophical worldviews, and religious faith. He is also an adjunct senior research fellow at the Social Futuring Center.
John D. Mueller is the Lehrman Institute Fellow in Economics and Director of the Economics and Ethics Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Mueller specializes in the relation of modern economic theory to its Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman origins, its practical application to personal, family, and political economy, and the interaction of economics, philosophical worldviews, and religious faith. He is also an adjunct senior research fellow at the Social Futuring Center.
Mr. Mueller retired in January 2015 as president of LBMC LLC, a firm in Washington, D.C. specializing in economic and financial-market forecasting and economic policy analysis. He has more than 35 years’ experience in those fields. Besides investment managers, Mr. Mueller has advised many American and foreign economic policymakers on monetary policy and exchange rates, policies for reducing unemployment, and income-tax, welfare and Social Security reform. He is author of Redeeming Economics: Rediscovering the Missing Element (ISI Books, 2010; updated paperback, 2014). From 1979 through 1988, Mr. Mueller was economist and speechwriter to then-Congressman Jack Kemp, mostly as Economic Counsel to the House Republican Conference (caucus) of which Kemp was chairman. In that capacity he drafted bills originating some key features of President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts of 1981 and Tax Reform Act of 1986 and of Kemp’s 1988 presidential campaign. Mr. Mueller graduated in 1974 from Haverford College, and after his children completed their education, received his master’s degree in applied economics in 2019 from the University of Maryland, and in 2020 became a doctoral candidate in economics of Corvinus University in Budapest.
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View a video on a special issue of the Society and Economy Journal, featuring commentary from Mr. Mueller:
- with Hungarian subtitles: https://youtu.be/6alU4PA0kYY
- with Chinese subtitles: https://youtu.be/8gOgrMnh19w
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Reviews of John D. Mueller’s Redeeming Economics: Rediscovering the Missing Element, ISI Books, Wilmington, DE, 2014 [2010]
Kevin D. Williamson, “Summa Economica,” National Review, October 18, 2010, Issue
William E. Dean, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, XXIII, 2011: 207-209 (PDF)
David Colander, Middlebury College, Journal of Economic Literature: Vol. 49 No. 3 – Book Review, JEL 2011–0025 (Abstract | PDF)
Joseph Lawler, “A Review of Redeeming Economics,” First Things, January 2011
Kevin Clark, “Redeeming Economics” (PDF)
Ryan T. Anderson, “Dismal Science Redeemed: What’s Gone Wrong,” The Public Discourse, May 4, 2011; “Dismal Science Redeemed: Where to Go from Here,” May 6, 2011
Troy Gibson, “Redeeming Economics, a review,” The Reformed Mind, 23 June 2011
J. Daniel Hammond, Wake Forest University, Faith and Economics, 59 (Spring 2012): 73-77
Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., “Economics—When the Truth Really Matters,” Aleteia, November 22, 2014
- See also “Schall’s List of Longer Books to Keep Sane By,” on which Redeeming Economics appears
James M. Kushiner, “The Wealth of Families: The Realization of Adam Smith,” Touchstone, February 22, 2019
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Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Submissions
Social Futuring, Modern and Ancient (PDF)
Submitted to World Futures: The Journal Of New Paradigm Research
Rueff’s Laws of Unemployment and Inflation (PDF)
Submitted to Theoretical Economics
Published in American Governance (2016)
Published in American Governance (2016)
Published in Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 18, no. 2 (Summer 2015)
The ‘Missing Element’ in Modern Economics
Published in Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 18, no. 2 (Summer 2015)
Mueller, J. (2013), “Mueller’s redeeming economics”, A Research Annual (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 31A), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 109-118.
Mueller, J. (2013), “Mueller’s redeeming economics”, A Research Annual (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 31A), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 109-118.
Published in Journal of Markets and Morality 14, no. 2 (2011)
How Does Fiscal Policy Affect the American Worker?
Published in The Notre Dame Journal of Law Ethics and Public Policy (Vol. 20, No. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 563-619) (2006)
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AAA Index
The AAA Index, or Index of Human Flourishing (IHF)
Presented at 17th Annual Conference, Doctoral School of Economics, Business and Informatics, Corvinus University Budapest
Still Paying the Price of Keynesian Currency
John Mueller
Now, as in 1929 and 2008, Americans need real protection from economic harm. But this harm is not caused by immigrants or foreigners, but by the reserve currency scheme of John Maynard Keynes, and the currency wars which his scheme has caused for a century.
Articles
Wall Street Journal / October 9, 2015
Comment on Michael V. Szpindor Watson’s “Mueller and Mises: Integrating the Gift and ‘Final Distribution’…
John Mueller
While Michael Watson’s effort to fill the theoretical gap in modern ‘neoclassical’ economic theory is welcome, it too falls short through ‘underdetermination,’ attempting to make a single element—the theory of utility—explain both consumption and ‘final distribution.’
Articles
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 18, no. 2 (Summer 2015) / September 16, 2015
The ‘Missing Element’ in Modern Economics
John Mueller
Austrian Economics scholars observe Christmas by gift-giving in even greater proportion than the general population. But this creates an explanatory problem, because no school of modern economics, including the Austrian School, has an adequate theory of personal gifts.
Articles
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 18, no. 2 (Summer 2015) / September 16, 2015
How the ‘Reserve’ Dollar Harms America
John Mueller
The economic crisis of 2008-09 was similar to the crisis that triggered the Great Depression–both caused by the ‘demand duplication’ required by using the dollar as an official reserve currency.
Articles
Wall Street Journal / November 21, 2014
Paul Krugman: The Dollar’s Reserve-Currency Role Is A ‘Much Over-Rated Phenomenon’
John Mueller
Keynesians who like Professor Krugman engage in magical thinking have never been infrequent. What is new is that they are being joined in growing numbers by Keynesians who don’t.
Articles
Forbes / October 27, 2014
Where the Gold Standard Act of 1984 Came From–and Why It’s Still Relevant
John Mueller
The debate that led to Jack Kemp’s Gold Standard Act of 1984 also explains why the agreement on gold that eluded President Ronald Reagan is now finally possible.
Articles
Kemp Forum on Growth / June 11, 2014
The Major Problems Congress Created by Ending the Classical Gold Standard
John Mueller
Congress created the three major economic problems that haunt the United States today by ending the classical gold standard.
Articles
Association of Private Enterprise Economics (APEE) Annual Conference / April 15, 2014