Independent Institute

Not to be confused with the Independence Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Golden, Colorado.

Independent Institute

File:The logo of the Independent Institute.png
Motto	The Power of Independent Thinking
Founder(s)	David J. Theroux
Established	1986
Focus	Public policy, libertarianism, classical liberalism
President & CEO	David J. Theroux
Faculty	10
Adjunct faculty	249
Staff	21
Budget	Revenue: $2,775,869 Expenses: $2,521,584 (FYE June 2014)
Address	100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428
Website	Independent.org

The Independent Institute is an American libertarian conservative think tank based in Oakland, California. Its stated mission is "to boldly advance peaceful, prosperous, and free societies, grounded in a commitment to human worth and dignity." Founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux, the Institute focuses on political, social, economic, legal, environmental and foreign policy issues. It has more than 140 research fellows. The Institute was originally established in San Francisco, was re-located in 1989 to Oakland, and since 2006, has had an office in Washington, D.C. The Institute is organized into seven centers addressing a range of issues. According to the 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), the Institute is ranked number 54 (of 60) in the "Top Think Tanks in the United States".

Publications and programs

The results of the Institute's work are published as books and other publications and form the basis for conferences and media programs. Since 1996, the Institute has published the quarterly, scholarly journal, The Independent Review, whose Founding Editor and Editor at Large is the economist and historian Robert Higgs and Co-Editors are Christopher Coyne, Michael Munger, and Robert Whaples (Wake Forest University). The Independent Review is peer-reviewed and includes articles in economics, political science, law, history, philosophy and sociology.

Articles on the Institute's findings are published in newspapers, magazines and journals, and its fellows appear on various television and radio programs. In addition, the Institute conducts conference programs for scholars, business leaders, the media, policy makers and the general public. The Institute's Independent Policy Forum includes seminars by historians and economists including James M. Buchanan, legal scholars, foreign policy experts, criminologists, authors of such disparate personality and political temperament as Gore Vidal and P. J. O'Rourke, human rights leaders, scientists, jurists, journalists, and business leaders.

Its program in criminal justice sponsored a series of televised debates on PBS-TV, Stopping Violent Crime: New Directions for Reduction and Prevention, moderated by Harvard law professor Arthur R. Miller, and former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, Federal Judge David Sentelle, civil libertarian writer Wendy Kaminer, and others.

In 2006 the Institute opened an office in Washington and expanded its media program, including a weekly column by Senior Fellow Álvaro Vargas Llosa in the Washington Post. In 2006 the Institute released an Open Letter on Immigration, signed by more than 500 economists, including five Nobel laureates, and received editorial endorsements in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

In 2010, the Institute began a satellite website MyGovCost.org which features the headline "What is government spending costing you?". The site includes a calculator which asks for visitors' education, income, and age, and then calculates the person's share of government spending and debt for the current year, as well as for the person's remaining projected lifespan. The site also features a blog with news and analysis of examples of government waste, mismanagement, and fiscal irresponsibility.

The Institute operates programs for students, including an essay contest for college students, summer seminars for high school and college students, student internships, and tuition assistance for disadvantaged families to send their children to private schools (Independent Scholarship Fund).

Climate change

The Independent Institute has published works by S. Fred Singer, a research fellow of the Institute. The works include Hot Talk, Cold Science: Climate Change's Unfinished Debate, a 2009 attempt to rebut climate change policies. It was co-authored with Frederick Seitz, another research fellow of the Institute. The book included Singer's 2004 essay, "The Scientific Case against the Global Climate Treaty". The Institute also published a 2003 policy report, “New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn't Telling Us”, by Singer. That report criticized the EPA's 2001 Climate Action Report.

Funding

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, the Institute had total revenue of $2,775,869. From 2007 to 2011 the Institute took in $12,249,065 from gifts, grants, contributions, and membership fees; and $536,747 in gross income from interest, dividends, payments received on securities loans, rents, royalties, and income from similar sources.

Microsoft funding controversy

On June 2, 1999, the Institute sponsored a full-page advertisement titled Open Letter on Antitrust Protectionism in the Washington Post and the New York Times. The ads were signed by 240 economists and claimed "headline-grabbing cases against Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Visa and MasterCard, along with a flurry of merger investigations now under way, would appear to demonstrate the need for a vigorously enforced antitrust policy that will create checks and balances to eliminate consumer harm. However, consumers did not ask for these antitrust actions—rival business firms did."

In September 1999, a controversy arose when New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley stated that the advertisements had been paid for by Microsoft. Based on internal Independent Institute documents "provided to the New York Times by a Microsoft adversary associated with the computer industry who refused to be further identified", Brinkley wrote that Microsoft "has secretly served as the institute's largest outside financial benefactor in the last year." Independent Institute internal documents showed that Microsoft had contributed $203,217 in 1999, making it the single largest contributor. Brinkley calculated that Microsoft's contribution amounted to approximately 20% of the funds in 1999 from external sources, excluding $304,725 contributed by Theroux.

The day after Brinkley's article appeared, Theroux stated that "our final year-end records do not agree with the numbers he had been provided by his source" and claimed that at the media conference he had stated that the Microsoft funding amounted to 7%. "It now appears the final figure is about 8%, a statistically insignificant difference, and far less than the 20% figure Mr. Brinkley claimed in his article," said Theroux.

In June 2000, Wall Street Journal staff reporters Glenn Simpson and Ted Bridis revealed that Oracle had hired Investigative Group International, as well as Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, a Washington, D.C., public-relations agency, to distribute damaging information about Microsoft's allies to media outlets. Oracle admitted that this was the "Microsoft adversary associated with the computer industry who refused to be further identified," which was the sole source for Brinkley's article.

External links

• The Independent Institute
• EDIRC listing (provided by RePEc)
• Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)