Max Gulker
Senior Policy Analyst
Max Gulker is a former Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is currently a Senior Fellow with the Reason Foundation. At AIER his research focused on two main areas: policy and technology. On the policy side, Gulker looked at how issues like poverty and access to education can be addressed with voluntary, decentralized approaches that don’t interfere with free markets. On technology, Gulker was interested in emerging fields like blockchain and cryptocurrencies, competitive issues raised by tech giants such as Facebook and Google, and the sharing economy.
Gulker frequently appears at conferences, on podcasts, and on television. Gulker holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University and a BA in economics from the University of Michigan. Prior to AIER, Max spent time in the private sector, consulting with large technology and financial firms on antitrust and other litigation. Follow @maxg_econ.
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A Higher Minimum Wage, More Unions, and More Public Housing. Review of ‘Poverty, by America’ by Matthew Desmond
“Desmond’s policy proposals almost all double down on collaboration between big government, big business, and big labor–the ‘system’ against which the American left first cut its teeth protesting.” ~ Max Gulker
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Private Enterprise Fuels the Community
“Governor Baker and the expert teams in statehouses across the country must find ways to give more small businesses the flexibility to solve the problems that state commissions both cannot and should never have tried to solve.” ~ Max Gulker
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The Academy’s Monopoly on the Truth Is Crumbling
“Just like in markets, truly revolutionary technologies never destroy the old order–they usually accomplish more through adoption, changing established players from within. Goodacre’s efforts, especially as a hub where traditional academic insiders and outsiders met, teaches us much about how new technology changes old institutions. More academics should learn the lesson.” ~ Max Gulker
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The Myth of Voting One’s Pocketbook
“‘People vote their pocketbooks’ is a misleading and potentially insidious approximation of voter behavior. A better approximation for modern times is ‘People vote for the candidate or party that provides a better story about themselves.’ That can be problematic itself, but when we bring economic performance along for the ride the problems only multiply. Putting…
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The End of Consensus
“We think of social media with its inescapable cacophony as a force dividing us. But the problem is our assumption that ‘united’ means ‘doing and thinking the same thing.’ Ironically, exactly this networked technology enables us to think and do different things while remaining connected rather than isolated, and therefore, be greater than the sum…
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We Need a COVID-19 Response for Real Human Beings
“Many say that we have to make approximations or risk being paralyzed–we have to “do something.” But what if all our bandwidth, as researchers, politicians, consumers and producers of mass and social media, is being used up by the wrong questions?” ~ Max Gulker
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The Slow, Strange, and Wonderful Unmasking of America
“The overturning of laws and mass displays of civil disobedience will play only supporting roles to knowledge gained and exchanged painfully slowly between people. The theoreticians and philosophers are asking important questions, but I urge them not to miss this deeply libertarian phenomenon analogous to so many market processes and free exchanges of ideas that…
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An Open Letter to the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“Treating this as a mistake and correcting it is the right thing to do in response to an unfortunate lapse in judgement. Failure to do so in my opinion would amount to among the most egregious instances of such crass intimidation I have seen.” ~ Max Gulker
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Massachusetts’ Phased Reopenings Harm Businesses, Help Nobody
“Governor Baker’s plan is understandable politics but unforgivable policy.” ~ Max Gulker
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The Struggle Over “Basic Economics”
“If any economist in the classical tradition, from Smith to Hayek, ever argued that free markets and competition yielded “perfect” outcomes, I am not aware of it. But the mathematical and graphical modelling of perfect competition and “supply and demand” stand as the gutted remains of basic economics.” ~ Max Gulker
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•
A Higher Minimum Wage, More Unions, and More Public Housing. Review of ‘Poverty, by America’ by Matthew Desmond
“Desmond’s policy proposals almost all double down on collaboration between big government, big business, and big labor–the ‘system’ against which the American left first cut its teeth protesting.” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
Private Enterprise Fuels the Community
“Governor Baker and the expert teams in statehouses across the country must find ways to give more small businesses the flexibility to solve the problems that state commissions both cannot and should never have tried to solve.” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
The Academy’s Monopoly on the Truth Is Crumbling
“Just like in markets, truly revolutionary technologies never destroy the old order–they usually accomplish more through adoption, changing established players from within. Goodacre’s efforts, especially as a hub where traditional academic insiders and outsiders met, teaches us much about how new technology changes old institutions. More academics should learn the lesson.” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
The Myth of Voting One’s Pocketbook
“‘People vote their pocketbooks’ is a misleading and potentially insidious approximation of voter behavior. A better approximation for modern times is ‘People vote for the candidate or party that provides a better story about themselves.’ That can be problematic itself, but when we bring economic performance along for the ride the problems only multiply. Putting…
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•
The End of Consensus
“We think of social media with its inescapable cacophony as a force dividing us. But the problem is our assumption that ‘united’ means ‘doing and thinking the same thing.’ Ironically, exactly this networked technology enables us to think and do different things while remaining connected rather than isolated, and therefore, be greater than the sum…
-
•
We Need a COVID-19 Response for Real Human Beings
“Many say that we have to make approximations or risk being paralyzed–we have to “do something.” But what if all our bandwidth, as researchers, politicians, consumers and producers of mass and social media, is being used up by the wrong questions?” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
The Slow, Strange, and Wonderful Unmasking of America
“The overturning of laws and mass displays of civil disobedience will play only supporting roles to knowledge gained and exchanged painfully slowly between people. The theoreticians and philosophers are asking important questions, but I urge them not to miss this deeply libertarian phenomenon analogous to so many market processes and free exchanges of ideas that…
-
•
An Open Letter to the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“Treating this as a mistake and correcting it is the right thing to do in response to an unfortunate lapse in judgement. Failure to do so in my opinion would amount to among the most egregious instances of such crass intimidation I have seen.” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
Massachusetts’ Phased Reopenings Harm Businesses, Help Nobody
“Governor Baker’s plan is understandable politics but unforgivable policy.” ~ Max Gulker
-
•
The Struggle Over “Basic Economics”
“If any economist in the classical tradition, from Smith to Hayek, ever argued that free markets and competition yielded “perfect” outcomes, I am not aware of it. But the mathematical and graphical modelling of perfect competition and “supply and demand” stand as the gutted remains of basic economics.” ~ Max Gulker