Senior Research Fellow

Art Carden serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics. He is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and a Fellow with Samford’s Center for Science and Religion. In addition, he is a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute, a Senior Fellow with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, an Adjunct Program officer in Economics with the Institute for Humane Studies, and a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research in 2008, 2009, and 2011 and has had the honor of teaching in summer programs sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Dr. Carden’s main areas of research are Southern Economic History, development economics, and the effects of “Big Box” retailers like Walmart and Costco. His research has appeared in journals like the Journal of Urban Economics, Public Choice, Contemporary Economic Policy, and Business and Politics. He contributes regular commentaries to Forbes.com and the Washington Examiner and his other commentaries have appeared on USNews.com, Mises.org, and ForeignPolicy.com, as well as in newspapers like the Tennessean, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Los Angeles Business Journal, the Orlando Business Journal, and numerous other outlets.

Dr. Carden holds a B.S. and an M.A. in economics from the University of Alabama (2001), an A.M. and Ph.D. in economics from Washington University in Saint Louis (2003, 2006), and a Graduate Certificate in New Institutional Social Sciences from Washington University in Saint Louis (2006). From 2006 until 2012, he was on the faculty at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.