The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 64 - Non-tobacco output

Overview of previous posts here

Microsoft

The tobacco industry isn't the only industry using think tanks to manipulate the audience. In 1999, the Independent Institute sponsored a full-page advertisement (Open Letter on Antitrust Protectionism) in the Washington Post and the New York Times, signed by 240 economists.

25 of the people signing were members of the Tobacco Institute's economists network.

The letter sounds familiar, it's just the same old call against regulations. The only real question is: were they following their political beliefs, or was the Independent Institue not anly gaining money from the Tobacco industry, but also from Microsoft ? And is it a coincidence in 1998 tobacco network economists William F. Shughart II and Richard B. McKenzie wrote the piece is Microsoft a monopolist? or where they paid to write it ?
 
Well, you probably already guessed it: According to the NYT in 1999 20% of the Independent Institute's funding came from ... Microsoft: 'Unbiased' Ads for Microsoft Came at a Price

Economists for sale ? Or was it pragmatism, and was the Independent Institute just working together with the industry to reach a libertarian objective ?


Alcohol output

By 1995 the tobacco industry was already working with a lot of think tanks and businesses, trying to attack the government on all sorts of environmental sciences



It may or may not be a coincidence, but in 1997 tobacco economist Richard Wagner wrote a chapter on the social cost of alcohol in a book edited by another network member, William F. Shughart II in the book The Taxation of Alcohol and the Control of Social Cost. In Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination.

But even earlier, in 1987, Robert D. Tollison and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. wrote Economic effects of Geographic Restraints in the Malt Beverage Industry used by Tollison in a hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopolies, and Business Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, first session on S. 567 (August 4, 1987).

And more alcohol output in this one: Temporal regulation and intertemporal substitution: The effect of banning alcohol at college football games. by William J. Boyes and Roger L. Faith

It could be a coincidence the tobacco authors suddenly en messa took such interest in alcohol ?


Petroleum industry

After the  Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska (1989) there was serious outrage allover the world. So the industry could use some help, and two tobacco economists stepped in : Alaskas Other Oil Spill. January 1, 1990. Foundation for Economic Education (written by Dwight R. Lee and Stephen L. Jackstadt). 

No, the article is not about oil or protecting the environment. It's the same old story on taxes.

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 59 - The Independent Institute

Overview of previous posts here

The first part of theis blog series explored the activities of the economists network in the 1980's and early 1990's. The second part of the series illustrated the tobacco industry finally would not just attack science, but would try to change the political landscpae by exploiting people's personal beliefs. 

That's where extremist free-market think tanks come to play.

THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE

At least 21 of the network economists have/had connections with the Independent Institute. In 1994, both core members Tollison and Wagner were among the members of the advisory board (Tollison had been on the board since 1986, the year the think tank was founded)


Clinton reform plan (1994)

As a part of the 1993 Clinton health reform plan, there was a suggestion to increase the excise taxes on cigarettes from 24c per pack to 99c, the so called "monster-tax".

The industry answered with the "monster op-ed" round, by setting up PR-firm APCO, and some more activities less relevant for the this story.

There also was an 'open letter' from the Independent Institute. It is not clear who ordered the letter, but no less than 52 economists from the economists' network signed the Open Letter to President Clinton on Healthcare Reform. It won't come as a surprise the letter draws the 'taxes' card. And is quite hysterical.

It may or may not be a coincidence so many of the social cost economists are affiliated one way or another with the Independent Institute. And it may or may not be a coincidence the letter fits the tobacco industry's social cost program. 

One has the impression the Independent Institute acted as a front for a campaign launched by the tobacco industry.


Detaxing America (1995)

In the 1980's and early 1990's, the industry paid economist to appear at economic meetings. It seems later on the industry simply organized its own conferences with think tanks acting as a cover.

In 1995, the Independent Institute organized the conference Detaxing America to promote the forthcoming book written by William F. Shughart II

Following tobacco economists attended the conference:  William Shughart II, Bruce L. Benson, Dwight R. Lee, Robert Ekelund Jr.,  Gary M. Anderson,  Richard Vedder and Mark Thornton

7 of the 17 invited speakers were members of Tollison's illegal social cost network. With several of the 13 other speakers (p. ex. DiLorenzo and Tullock) also being paid by the tobacco industry, but in other lobby-programs.

No, "Independent Institute" doesn't seem the best possible name to describe that think tank.

Books by the Independent Institute

The Independent Institute published several books and reports written by tobacco lobbyists. But even when the tobacco economists weren't the first author of a publication, they still were around.


1994 : William Mitchell and Randy Simmons, Beyond Politics (foreword by Gordon Tullock)

David J. Theroux of the Independent Institute wrote a letter to Tobacco Institute

Quite a strange move for an “Independent” Institute, no ? 

1995: Donald J Boudreaux and Adam Pritchard : Civil Forefeiture As A Tax. The authors thank 6 people for "instructive discussion and comments", four of them being tobacco economists : Bruce Benson, Dwight Lee, William Shughart and Bruce Yandle.

1995: William F. Shughart: The economics of excise taxation

1996 : Richard Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway : The Melting Pot.

1997: William F. Shughart (ed): Taxing choice: The predatory politics of fiscal discrimination

Including Shughart, at least 7 of the 18 authors have been paid by the Tobacco Institute. Probably not a surprise, as already in 1994 David J. Theroux of the Independent Institute contacted the Tobacco Institute about the book, draft title Sin Taxes



(...)

Dr. Robert Higgs was one of the people asked by the Tobacco Institute in 1996 to write op-eds against FDA-regulations[11] Shughart was one of the most active members in the network of social cost consultants.

And to promote the book:

2000: Dominick Armentano: Antitrust and monopoly

2000: Roger Meiners and Bruce Yandle : Regulation and the Reagan Era

The foreword of this book was written by Robert Crandall, another tobacco lobbyist (and then brother in law of S. Fred Singer).

The industry also used think tankers outside the social cost network to work for them. Another Independent Institute economist, Canadian Pierre Lemieux (also involved in the pro-tobacco group FORCES) wrote the book "Smoking and Liberty: Government as a Public Health Problem"and a whole lot of smaller texts, listed on his website on a page he titled Smoking, Liberty and Health Fascism. His extremist titles and views may be a reason the industry didn't use him more often.

This document suggests there also might have been a (small) Canadian network. I did not explore it any further. The John Luik in the document was twice fired from universities for being dishonest. His former Dean stated

The Independent Institute is a fine example of tobacco interests and extremist free-market views finding and strenghtening each other, ultimately mingling into one big pseudoscientific mess benefiting the tobacco industry. 

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 54 - Working with Think tanks

 Overview of previous posts here

Tobacco Employee Roy Marden was one of the tobacco employees responsible for the communication with think tanks. He wrote the following memo, titled Tobacco Strategy on the think tanks he was responsible for (the industry divided the think tanks between a couple of its employees)

(...) (the document is 6p. long)

The tobacco industry sought the help of right-wing think tanks to fight excise taxes.

In 1995, the Tobacco Institute sent a memo, mentioning that the economists still were able to provide op-eds in no less than 30 states. The same memo illustrates how the industry worked with the different think tanks

A similar document was written in 1998, most likely by Roy Marden. Notice how long the list is. It no longer only mentions thinks tanks, but many journalists, and even an actor and a magician (???). It's not clear why the document mentions Dwight R. Lee and Walter Williams, but it is possible Marden was not aware of their membership in the social cost economists network. Do also notice he mentions he's on the board of the Heartland Institute. 

[ETC, the list is a couple of pages long]

While there always have been contacts between the industry and think tanks, and they worked together since at least the 1980's, it was only in the 1990's that the industry's involvement would become so pervasive that one could say the industry 'owned' some of these organizations.

In the long run, think tanks probably were much more powerful allies than a secret network of economists ever could have been.

S. Fred Singer wrote his infamous Alexis De Tocqueville Institution's tobacco-paper in 1994 (see further), with Robert D. Tollison helping him. Tobacco economists were working with the Heartland Institute since at least 1991. The Independent Institute was was joined by many members of the economists' network. In 1994, Tollison and Wagner became members of the Independent Institute's advisory board.