Cowen Caps Active Semester With Foreign Policy Nomination

by Rashad Mulla

Cowen Caps Active Semester With Foreign Policy Nomination

This semester, George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen added a slew of accomplishments to his already significant local, national and international influence.

On the heels of last winter’s release of his 15,000-word e-book, “The Great Stagnation,” Cowen taught a graduate level class during the fall of 2011 while continuing to blog on “Marginal Revolution,” a site he co-authors with fellow faculty member Alex Tabarrok. Cowen authored columns in the New York Times and Foreign Policy, he was covered in Slate, the Economist and the Washington Post, he appeared on National Public Radio and he co-authored an article on the National Basketball Association offseason lockout for ESPN’s Grantland.

In the December 2011 issue of Foreign Policy, Cowen was named 72nd in the publication’s Top 100 Global Thinkers listing alongside presidents, prime ministers, revolutionaries (Yemen’s Tawakkul Karman, who came to Mason in November, was listed 5th) and intellectual heavyweights around the world. Cowen was nominated to the list for his informative posts and columns, which serve as discussion-starters for several different topics.

“In an age when academics are increasingly pushed to specialize in ever-more-arcane subtopics, Tyler Cowen's output is delightfully eclectic,” the Foreign Policy article states. “In his books, his New York Times columns, and especially on Marginal Revolution, the blog he co-authors with colleague Alex Tabarrok, Cowen riffs as comfortably on Cantonese cuisine and classical music as on monetary policy and interest rates. Most importantly, the blog has become a kind of central gateway to the growing world of blogging economists.” 

Dan Houser, chair of the Department of Economics at Mason, says Cowen’s achievement is a huge honor.

“We are proud of Tyler's many accomplishments, and greatly honored that he has been recognized as one of the world's leading global thinkers,” Houser said. “This extraordinary achievement furthers our faculty's international reputation for creating visionary, outside-the-box economic ideas.”

Jack Censer, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, trumpeted Cowen’s achievement, calling it phenomenal news.

“Having looked through the entire list of nominees by Foreign Affairs, it is obvious that Tyler has a readership and a following of immense proportions,” Censer said. “We are intensely proud that Tyler, who was an undergraduate at Mason, has reached the stratosphere of movers and shakers.”