David R. Henderson | |
|---|---|
 Henderson in 2011 | |
| Born | David Richard Henderson (1950-11-21)November 21, 1950 (age 75) Boissevain, Manitoba, Canada |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of Winnipeg (BSc) University of California, Los Angeles (MA,PhD) |
| Influences | Armen Alchian,Milton Friedman,Adam Smith,Karl Marx,John Maynard Keynes,Ayn Rand |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Economics |
| Institutions | Naval Postgraduate School |
David Richard Henderson (born November 21, 1950) is a Canadian-born American economist and author who moved to the United States in 1972 and became a U.S. citizen in 1986, serving on PresidentRonald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984.[1] A research fellow at Stanford University'sHoover Institution[2] since 1990, he took a teaching position with theNaval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California in 1984, and is now an emeritus professor of economics.[3]
Henderson earned his B.Sc. (1970) from the University of Winnipeg, followed by his M.A. and Ph.D.(1976) in Economics from UCLA.[2] Henderson's areas of scholarly interest include microeconomics, cost–benefit analysis,health economics, energy economics, and the economics of taxation.[3]
A friend of economistMilton Friedman since they first met at the University of Chicago in 1970, Henderson took his advice to "make politics an avocation, not a vocation," pursuing a career course that led to earning a Ph.D. in economics.[4] Henderson first taught at the University of Rochester, Graduate School of Management, from 1975 to 1979. Next, he took a position at San Francisco-basedCato Institute from 1979 to 1980, and then a short stint at Santa Clara University from 1980 to 1981.[3] In 1982, Henderson joined President Reagan's administration as a senior economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, serving as senior economist for health policy from 1982 to 1984 and then senior economist for energy policy from 1983 to 1984.[5] Henderson wrote about socioeconomic issues for 17 years at the blog EconLog, along withBryan Caplan, whichThe Wall Street Journal designated as one of the top 25 economics blogs in 2009.[6] In August 2025 who moved to blogging atSubstack. He stated that: "The big advantage of my Substack is that I have total control over subject matter and content."[7]
Henderson has written articles appearing in publications such asThe New York Times,The Wall Street Journal,Forbes,Los Angeles Times,Chicago Tribune,Barron's,Fortune,The Freeman,The Public Interest, andThe Christian Science Monitor. Henderson was the economics editor for theNational Review the "Wartime Economist" forAntiwar.com and a contributing editor forReason magazine[8] He is a Senior Fellow with the Vancouver-basedFraser Institute.[9] He has appeared onC-SPAN,The O'Reilly Factor,CNN,MSNBC,RT,[10] theJim Lehrer Newshour and theJohn Stossel TV show, along with numerous radio shows and interviews with theBBC,KQED-FM,NPR and local radio affiliates.Henderson has travelled to Washington D.C. to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.[citation needed] A number of his research articles have appeared in scholarly journals, includingJournal of Monetary Economics,The Independent Review,Cato Journal,Regulation,Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,The Energy Journal, andContemporary Economic Policy.
