About

Will Wilkinson is a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and editor of Cato Unbound, the Institutes online forum of big ideas. Wilkinson who works on a wide range of issues, from Social Security to the policy implications of happiness research to the nature of economic inequality and mobility.

Wilkinson’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Economist, Reason, Forbes, the Philadephia Inquirer, Slate, Policy, Prospect, and a variety of other publication online and off. Wilkinson is an online columnist for The Week, has been a regular writer for The Economist’s Free Exchange economics blog, was a commentator for American Public Media’s radio program Marketplace, and appears frequently on Bloggingheads TV.

Before joining Cato, Wilkinson was Academic Coordinator of the Social Change Project and the Global Prosperity Initiative at The Mercatus Center at George Mason University. For three years he ran the Social Change Workshop for Graduate Students for The Institute for Humane Studies, where he was also a Program Director involved in academic programs.

Wilkinson graduated in 1995 from the University of Northern Iowa with a B.A. in the Humanities (Philosophy and History of Art) and in Studio Art (Painting), and again in 1998 from Northern Illinois University with an M.A. in Philosophy. For about six years, on and off, he was a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the University of Maryland, where he studied the philosophy of mind and language and then, later, political philosophy.

Wilkinson lives in Iowa City, Iowa with his fiance, Kerry Howley, who attends the University of Iowa’s MFA program in literary nonfiction.