Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

Are free market economies really based on fleecing the consumer? Is the U.S. economy truly just a giant free-for-all that encourages duplicity in our everyday transactions? Is everyone from corporate CEOs to your local car salesman really looking to make a buck at your expense?

In Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t, economist and bestselling author John R. Lott, Jr. addresses these and other common economic questions. He argues that free markets liberate the best, most creative, and most generous aspects of our society – while efforts to constrain economic liberty, no matter how well-intentioned, invariably lead to increased poverty and injustice. Lott also extends his economic analysis to posit corollaries between free markets and our political and criminal justice systems.

JOHN R. LOTT, JR., economist and author of The Bias against Guns and More Guns, Less Crime, will be a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland Foundation for the 2007-08 academic year. He has also held positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford University, UCLA, Wharton Business School and Rice University. Lott was the Chief Economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from UCLA.