I was born on August 14, 1940, in Youngstown, Ohio. I am the son of a politician and a businessman. I studied economics at Yale University and received my B.A there in 1963. I then studied international economics at Stanford University and received my M.B.A in 1965 and my Ph.D in 1972.

After receiving my doctorate, I went on to teach at University of Chicago (1974-1976), then at University of Southern California (1976-1984), then finally at Pepperdine University (1984-1987). While I was teaching, I also worked as a political consultant. I served as a consultant to the U.S. Treasury and Defense departments (1972-1977) and then as a member of the economic policy advisory board for President Reagan during both terms of his presidency (1981-1989). In 1986, I also ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, but unfortunately, I did not get the position.

Today, I live in Nashville, Tennessee where I am the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates (an economics consulting firm) and Laffer Investments (an investment management firm).

INFLUENCES
My career in economics would not be the same had it not been for John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Ibn Khaldun and Robert Mundell. These four, particularly Keynes and Khaldun, shaped my views on supply-side policies today.

Keynes and Khaldun were particularly strong influences because they were the ones that first spoke of the idea of the Laffer Curve. I had based my illustration off of their ideas.

Some of my other publications and works are...

MAJOR IDEAS
I am a supply-side economist. That means I mostly deal with tax and fiscal policies that help economic growth by creating incentives for producers to keep producing.

My most famous economic concept would be the Laffer Curve. Although it is most associated with me, I did not come up with this theory (despite what certain sources say). I simply drew the illustration to match the theory. 

I had come up with this theory at a 1974 dinner with Jude Wanniski, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. We were talking about then-president Gerald Ford's "WIN" (Whip Inflation Now) proposal for tax increases, so I went and grabbed a napkin to sketch the curve and explain my position on tax increases. 

The actual name of the curve came in 1978 when Jude was writing an article for The Public Interest, titled "Taxes, Revenues, and the 'Laffer Curve'". He had dubbed it "Laffer Curve" and it stuck ever since.

The actual graph shows the tradeoff between tax rates and the total tax revenues actually collected by the government. The basic idea is that no tax revenue will be collected at the extreme rates of 0% and 100%, therefore, there must be a point between those rates that would maximize tax revenue. That's why the curve is represented as a graph that starts at 0% tax rate and 0 revenue and ends at 100% tax rate and 0 revenue with a maximum revenue in the middle. Anything before the maximum revenue point is considered the "normal range" and anything after that point is considered a "prohibitive range". This is because increasing tax rates beyond a certain point is counter-productive for gaining more tax revenue. Higher tax rates become disincentives for people to earn more income. A cut in the tax rate would then be more beneficial to increasing tax revenues. But of course, the idea is not that all tax cuts will pay for themselves, it's that tax rate cuts will lead to more employment, personal income and growth, which are, ultimately, goals for any economy.

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