American Institute for Economic Research

The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a libertarian think tank located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor, and is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Since January 2022, the organization's president has been William P. Ruger.

It has promoted climate change denial, and was known for the Great Barrington Declaration and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

History
Col. Edward C. Harwood was a graduate of the United States Military Academy and served in the Army Corps of Engineers. In the 1920s, he began writing freelance magazine articles on economic issues. With $200 saved from selling his articles, Harwood founded AIER in 1933. According to The Berkshire Edge, this makes AIER the "oldest economic research institute in the United States".

Almost since its inception, AEIR has published periodicals. The initial two were the Investment Bulletin and the Research Reports. Now, AIER publishes The Daily Economy, Fusion, and the Harwood Economic Review, which cover economics news, classical liberal and conservative philosophy, and economic and econometric scholarship, respectively.

Edward Stringham was appointed President of the Institute in 2017; he was preceded by Stephen Adams, and succeeded by Will Ruger in 2022.

In 2019, the Museum of American Finance loaned its entire library collection to AIER, to be hosted, catalogued and made available there. The initial loan period was for five years.

Policy positions
AIER's stated mission is to "[educate] people on the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government, and sound money." They take positions on specific policies such as free trade, deregulation, and the defense of certain civil liberties.

The organization has a history of promoting climate change denial,  with articles such as "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest." The institution has also funded research on the comparative benefits that sweatshops supplying multinationals bring to the people working in them.

According to historian and philosopher Philip Mirowski, AIER has been "leading the charge" to neutralize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as "arbiters of public health" and favors abolishing other federal bureaucracies, such as the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, AIER was known for spreading misinformation and for promoting a herd immunity strategy of "focused protection" to deal with the pandemic.

AIER issued a statement in October 2020 called the Great Barrington Declaration that argued for a herd immunity strategy of "focused protection" to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. It was roundly condemned by many public health experts. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert appointed by the White House, called the declaration "total nonsense" and unscientific. Tyler Cowen, a libertarian economist at George Mason University, wrote that while he sympathized with a libertarian approach to deal with the pandemic, he considered the declaration to be dangerous and misguided. The declaration was also criticized by the Niskanen Center, a formerly libertarian think tank that now calls itself moderate.

AIER paid for ads on Facebook promoting its articles against government social distancing measures and mask mandates.

In October 2020, Twitter removed a tweet by White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas linking to an AIER article that argued against the effectiveness of masks.

Programs and affiliations
AIER maintains a global network of local chapters called the Bastiat Society. According to its website, the Bastiat Society "is a global network of individuals committed to advancing free trade, individual freedom, and limited government...[and hosts] over 200 lectures, discussions, seminars, workshops, and conferences in over 15 countries each year." It partners for events, initiatives, and other programming with the Atlas Network and other groups such as the Free to Choose Network, Young Voices, and several university centers across the country. Though AIER's campus is in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in recent years the majority of its programming has taken place at a variety of academic and conference venues around the country.

Books
After more than two decades of printing pamphlets and booklets in the main AIER office in Great Barrington, the institute constructed a full printing press and bookbinding shop in 1957. This press produced several self-published manuals of microeconomics for families and small business owners. The most widely distributed of these books included The Executor's Roadmap, How to Avoid Financial Tangles, and If Something Should Happen: How to Organize Your Financial and Legal Affairs, which has circulated more than 200,000 copies since 2008.

Funding
AIER owns American Investment Services Inc., an investment advisory firm whose fund was valued at around $285 million in 2020. The fund includes holdings in a wide range of companies but holds a majority of its assets in diversified exchange-traded funds and gold investments. In 2020, about 14% of its investments were in information technology and telecom companies including Microsoft and Alphabet Inc., about 6% in electric and gas utilities, 5% in fossil fuel companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil, and 2% in food, alcohol, and tobacco stocks, including Mondelez International and Philip Morris International.

Over half of AIER's funding comes from its investments, but it also receives contributions and foundation grants. In 2018 it reportedly received US$68,100 from the Charles Koch Foundation, approximately 3% of AIER's revenue for the year. It has partnered with Emergent Order, a public relations company also funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.

In 2019 the American Institute for Economic Research had total assets of $184,901,564. Funding details as of 2019: