Robert Litan is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he has previously been a Senior Fellow on staff, and Vice President and Director of Economic Studies. His current research focuses on federal regulation, entrepreneurship, and a broad range of economic policy subjects.
Litan is also a practicing attorney, as a partner with the law firm of Korein, Tillery, based in St. Louis and Chicago. He previously was a partner, Of counsel and associate with two Washington, D.C. law firms, and served during the first term of the Clinton Administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, where he oversaw civil non-merger litigation and the Department’s positions on regulatory matters, primarily in telecommunications.
As both an economist and attorney, Robert Litan has had nearly four decades of experience in the worlds of the law, economic research and policy, and as an executive in both the private, public and government sectors. He has served as Vice President for Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation and also the Director of Research at Bloomberg Government.
Litan currently serves on the advisory board of the American Antitrust Institute, is a consulting economist with Econ One, a national economic consulting firm, and is a contributing columnist for The Athletic, the nation’s leading online sports media company. He also has advised several startups in the United States and abroad.
Litan is a well-known speaker who has given hundreds of talks during his career before a wide range of audiences in the U.S. and around the world. His TEDxKansas City talk, “An economist walks into a bar,” has been viewed on YouTube almost 400,000 times (as of October 2020). He also has consulted for a wide range of private sector and governmental organizations, including the Department of Treasury on financial modernization and the effectiveness of the Community Reinvestment Act, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and the World Bank. In the early 1990s he served as a Member of the Presidential-Congressional Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis. He has chaired two panels of studies for the National Academy of Sciences, and has served on one other NAS Committee. He began his career as a Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
During his research career, Litan has authored or co-authored 27 books and edited another 14, and authored or co-authored numerous articles in professional and popular publications several of which are listed below.
Litan earned his B.S. in Economics (summa cum laude) at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania; his J.D. at Yale Law School; and his M. Phil. and Ph.D. at Yale University. He grew up in Wichita, Kansas and it is where he currently lives and works (virtually for the organizations identified above).
Litan is also a practicing attorney, as a partner with the law firm of Korein, Tillery, based in St. Louis and Chicago. He previously was a partner, Of counsel and associate with two Washington, D.C. law firms, and served during the first term of the Clinton Administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, where he oversaw civil non-merger litigation and the Department’s positions on regulatory matters, primarily in telecommunications.
As both an economist and attorney, Robert Litan has had nearly four decades of experience in the worlds of the law, economic research and policy, and as an executive in both the private, public and government sectors. He has served as Vice President for Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation and also the Director of Research at Bloomberg Government.
Litan currently serves on the advisory board of the American Antitrust Institute, is a consulting economist with Econ One, a national economic consulting firm, and is a contributing columnist for The Athletic, the nation’s leading online sports media company. He also has advised several startups in the United States and abroad.
Litan is a well-known speaker who has given hundreds of talks during his career before a wide range of audiences in the U.S. and around the world. His TEDxKansas City talk, “An economist walks into a bar,” has been viewed on YouTube almost 400,000 times (as of October 2020). He also has consulted for a wide range of private sector and governmental organizations, including the Department of Treasury on financial modernization and the effectiveness of the Community Reinvestment Act, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and the World Bank. In the early 1990s he served as a Member of the Presidential-Congressional Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis. He has chaired two panels of studies for the National Academy of Sciences, and has served on one other NAS Committee. He began his career as a Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
During his research career, Litan has authored or co-authored 27 books and edited another 14, and authored or co-authored numerous articles in professional and popular publications several of which are listed below.
Litan earned his B.S. in Economics (summa cum laude) at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania; his J.D. at Yale Law School; and his M. Phil. and Ph.D. at Yale University. He grew up in Wichita, Kansas and it is where he currently lives and works (virtually for the organizations identified above).
Resolved: Debate can Revolutionize Education and Help Save our Democracy (Brookings Press, 2020); Financial Crises and Policy Responses (American Enterprise Institute, 2016)
Adopting a simple education reform to restore civil discourse and transform American society In this era of extreme political polarization, it’s tempting to believe nothing can be done to heal a nation that is so obviously divided and led by dysfunctional politicians.
But there is a relatively simple and powerful way to begin the healing, and at the same time prepare the next generations of leaders for the rigorous demands of a constantly changing economy and society. The solution offered by this intriguing book is for schools across the country to focus on developing in students the skills of successful debaters. These are the skills—so clearly lacking in contemporary society—of listening and persuading, through civil discourse backed by fact-based evidence and reason.
Resolved explains how one simple educational reform can help address the nation’s political divide and at the same time help ensure that today’s young people will actually enjoy learning, and thus will have the necessary skills to lead productive and economically rewarding lives. The book offers practical ideas about a positive future for parents, educators, state legislators, business leaders—in fact, anyone interested in how debate-centered education can fundamentally change the country for the better.
“It would be easy to believe our lives would greatly improve if we all just decided to agree more, or perhaps disagree less. However, the key to progress and greater unity as a country isn’t actually less disagreement—it’s better disagreement. In Resolved, Robert Litan shows how we can do just this. Anyone interested in improving our nation’s civil discourse would benefit greatly from reading this wonderful book.”
“In this highly original and provocative book, Bob Litan draws on his own experience as well as on promising experiments in Boston and Chicago to propose a systematic debate curriculum for middle- and high-school students. In addition to adding excitement for students, his proposal should help them develop the skills they will need for success.”
“Bob Litan makes a very impressive and engaging case for a novel way of engaging students in the learning process and preparing them to be better workers and citizens, which would reinforce the importance of facts and critical reasoning and of understanding another’s point of view. These are critical skills if we want to both improve education and strengthen our democracy.”
“For decades, Bob Litan has creatively used economics to ameliorate diverse social problems. Now he shows convincingly how debate-centered education can improve our schools, our thinking, and ultimately our politics.”
OTHER PUBLICATIONS (Non-Exhaustive) ; The Good Economy (e-book, published by the Kauffman Foundation and the Roosevelt Institute, 2016, with Bo Cutter and Dane Stangler);
Trillion Dollar Economists, published by Wiley Press in September, 2014.
The Need for Speed (Brookings Institution Press, 2013, co-authored with Hal Singer);
Better Capitalism, co-authored with Carl Schramm, published by the Yale University Press in 2012,
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism (co-authored with William Baumol and Carl Schramm), also published by Yale in 2007, and which is used widely in college courses, and has been translated into 10 languages.
TEDx Talk