Please join us for this program and complimentary luncheon.
Governments determine levels of economic freedom through policies that encourage or restrict people in pursuing their interests. Taxes, regulations, ease or difficulty of trading, the legal system, the supply of money and other factors determine how economically free different countries and states truly are.
A lot of things go into a successful society, and many of them correlate with how economically free citizens are. Economic freedom in turn is strongly correlated with how healthy, wealthy and happy citizens tend to be.
Join us for a panel of state and international experts to discuss economic freedom in Michigan, the United States and around the world. If you cannot attend in person, the event will be livestreamed on this webpage and will also be recorded for viewing after the event.
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
11:30 a.m. buffet lunch
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. program
The Louie Building
Freedom Hall (6th Floor)
123 W. Allegan St.
Lansing, MI 48933
Call our Events office at
Registration is closed.
Barbara Kolm is a vice president of the Austrian Central Bank, director of the Austrian Economics Center, president of the Hayek Institute, and Professor of Austrian Economics at the University of Donja Gorica in Montenegro. She serves on supervisory boards for several institutions, including the Austrian Central Bank; Vienna Insurance Group, and the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She was appointed vice-chair of the United Nations ITU Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies. Considered the leading female libertarian in Europe, she is also a frequent speaker on public policy issues, especially on deregulation, competition, the future of Europe, and Austrian Economics.
Dan Mitchell is a public policy economist in Washington, D.C. His major research interests include tax reform, international tax competition, the economic burden of government spending, and other fiscal policy issues. He was a senior fellow with the Cato Institute for 11 years and spent nearly 17 years as an economist at the Heritage Foundation. He has decades of experience authoring papers, writing editorials, working with the public policy community, and presenting the free-market viewpoint to the newspaper, television, and radio media. His books include The Flat Tax: Freedom, Fairness, Jobs, and Growth, as well as Global Tax Revolution. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Washington Post, National Review, Villanova Law Review, and many other publications.
Richard W. Rahn is an economist, syndicated columnist, and entrepreneur. He is the chairman of Improbable Success Productions and the Institute for Global Economic Growth. He writes a syndicated weekly economic column published in The Washington Times, Real Clear Markets, and many other media. He is the author of the book The End of Money and the Struggle for Financial Privacy (1999), as well as a former economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Reagan Administration’s Quadrennial Social Security Advisory Council. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and The National Interest.
Jarrett Skorup is the vice president for marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He has held various roles within communications, including senior director of marketing and communications and director of the Frank Beckmann Center for Journalism at the Center, and has played a leadership role in marketing efforts, media strategy, and overseeing policy campaigns and objectives. He has worked at the Center since 2009.
