Richard W. Rahn is an economist and entrepreneur. Currently, he is Chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth and of Metal Convertibility LLC. From 2002 until 2024 he wrote a syndicated weekly economic column which was published in The Washington Times, Real Clear Markets and many other places.
Dr. Rahn served for two terms (2002-2008) as the first non-Caymanian member of the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, which regulates the world’s largest offshore financial center. In the 1980s, Dr. Rahn was the Vice President and Chief Economist of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Executive Vice President and Board member of the National Chamber Foundation, and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Economic Growth. During the first Reagan Administration, he served as a representative of the United States Information Agency in several countries. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the American Council for Capital Formation. In 1990-1991, he served as the U.S. co-chairman of the Bulgarian Economic Growth and Transition Project. In 1988-1989, he was an economic advisor to President G.H.W. Bush. In 1982, President Reagan appointed Dr. Rahn as a member of the Quadrennial Social Security Advisory Council.
In 1990, Dr. Rahn founded the Novecon companies, which included Novecon Financial Ltd., Novecopter, and Sterling Semiconductor (now owned by SK Siltron), and subsequently Improbable Success Productions.
Professor Rahn has taught at Florida State, George Mason, George Washington, Rutgers Universities, the Institute of World Politics, and the Polytechnic University of New York, where he was head of the graduate Department of Management. He also was an instructor and special project team member for the U.S. Air Force and the Washington economic advisor for the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Dr. Rahn is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and the board of the American Council for Capital Formation. He has served as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the Discovery Institute; as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation; a member of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review; and as a National Executive Director of the Ripon Society.
Dr. Rahn has written more than a thousand articles for newspapers, magazines, and professional journals, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and The National Interest. He is the author of the book The End of Money and the Struggle for Financial Privacy (1999). As an economic commentator, he has appeared on such programs as the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kudlow and Co., Wall Street Week, the PBS Newshour and Crossfire, and was a weekly commentator for Radio America. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on economic issues more than seventy-five times.
Dr. Rahn earned: a B.A. in economics at the University of South Florida, from which he received the "Distinguished Alumnus Award,” an M.B.A. from Florida State University, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by Pepperdine University. In 2018, Dr. Rahn was awarded a Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award.
