Julian Simon

Julian Simon (1932 - 1998) was professor of business administration at the University of Maryland[?] and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic subjects. He is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration. His works are often quoted by libertarians.

His book The Ultimate Resource[?], later reissued as The Ultimate Resource 2[?], is a massive assault on the conventional wisdom of population growth and resource consumption. In it, Simon challenged the neo-Malthusian notion that an increase in population has negative economic consequences, that population is a drain on natural resources, and that we stand at risk of running out of resources through over-consumption.

Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered into a famous wager, betting on a mutually agreed upon metric of resource scarcity. Simon won the bet.

An article profiling Julian Simon in Wired magazine (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr) inspired Bjørn Lomborg to write the revisionist environmental book The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Simon was also the first to suggest that airlines should provide rewards for travelers to give up their seats on overbooked airlines rather than arbitrarily keep certain passengers off the plane.

Simon was an omnivorous reader, and took some steps toward writing a memoir. He died at the age of 66.

External link

• Many of the writings of Julian Simon are available online at: http://www.juliansimon.org/