Draft:Joseph P. Kalt

Joseph P. Kalt (born 1951) is an American economist and the Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is known for his work in governance and economic development on American Indian reservations and among Indigenous communities worldwide.

In 1987, he founded (with Stephen Cornell) the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, for which he continues to serve as co-director. Kalt is also a leading expert in the economics of antitrust, economic development, international trade, government regulation and taxation. As a Senior Economist at Compass Lexecon and its predecessors over the mid-1980s into 2019, Kalt served as an advisor and expert witness on matters of regulation, taxation, and economic development to various national and international governments, including Thailand, China, Canada, Poland, Indonesia and numerous Indigenous nations.

Early life and education

Kalt was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and graduated from Tucson's Palo Verde High School in 1969. In high school, he served in various student government roles, participated in football, wrestling, and swimming, and was a delegate to Arizona Boys State and to Boy's Nation. Kalt went to college at Stanford University, where he received his bachelor's degree in economics (with University distinction and departmental honors) in 1973. During his college years, Kalt worked as a swimming coach, teacher, and pool manager for St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Tucson.

Following his undergraduate education, he accepted a Chancellor's Intern Fellowship in Economics (one of two awarded in 1973) and entered the PhD program in economics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After his first year of graduate studies at UCLA, Kalt moved to Washington, DC to serve during 1974-75 as a Junior Staff Economist on President Gerald Ford’s Council of Economic Advisers. In this role, he worked for Council Chairman, Alan Greenspan, and Council Member, Paul W. MacAvoy on issues of energy, transportation, financial market, international trade, and agricultural regulation. Upon returning to UCLA in 1975, Kalt went on to complete his Master’s (1977) and PhD (1980) in economics, writing his doctoral thesis on Federal Control of Petroleum Prices: A Case Study of the Theory of Regulation.

Academic career

Kalt joined the Department of Economics at Harvard University as an Instructor in 1978. Upon completion of his doctorate in 1980, he became an Assistant Professor and, in 1983, became an Associate Professor of Economics. In the Department of Economics, he taught courses in the Principles of Economics (earning the Allyn Young Prize for Excellence in the Teaching of the Principles of Economics in 1978-1979 and 1979-1980), Microeconomics, and graduate and undergraduate Industrial Organization and Regulation. Kalt also served as an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics over 1979-84, on the editorial board of the MIT Press series on Regulation of Economic Activity over 1984-92, on the editorial board of Economic Inquiry (1988-2002), and as a peer referee for numerous academic journals in economics and public policy.

In 1981, Kalt became a Research Fellow at the Energy and Environmental Policy Center at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (“HKS”), and shortly after began teaching courses in energy and natural resource policy at the School (which is the university's graduate school of public policy and management). In 1986, Kalt became a tenured professor of Political Economy at HKS, and subsequently the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy in 1992. In 2012, he became Emeritus Professor, and he continues to teach and direct his research programs at HKS.

At Harvard's Kennedy School, Kalt's teaching responsibilities have included courses in Microeconomics for Public Policy, Antitrust and Regulation, Energy and Natural Resources, and Indigenous Nation Building. In addition, he has served as assistant director for Natural Resources in HKS's Energy and Environmental Policy Center (1985–90) and Chair of the Environment and Natural Resources Program of the School's Center for Science and International Affairs (1990–94), as well as the School's Chair of Ph.D. programs (1989–90), Chair of Degree Programs (1990–92), Academic Dean for Research (1992–94), and Chair of the Economics and Quantitative Methods Section (1995-2000).

In addition to his positions at Harvard University, Kalt has held numerous guest and visiting faculty positions with other institutions. These include serving as a visiting professor at the University of Arizona’s Rogers College of Law in multiple years beginning in 2008, Eller College of Management over 2005-10, and American Indian Studies Program in various years beginning in 2008. Kalt has also served as faculty in the teaching programs of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute. From 1983-91, he served as Lecturer in the Economics Institute for Federal Administrative Law Judges, University of Miami School of Law. In 2013, he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Auckland Business School. Kalt was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2016 by Alfred University upon his delivery of the keynote address inaugurating Alfred’s new president, Mark A. Zupan.

Research and service

Industry regulation

In 1979, Kalt published Petroleum Price Regulation: Should We Decontrol? (with Kenneth J. Arrow). This was followed by MIT Press’ publication in 1981 of Kalt's doctoral thesis as The Economics and Politics of Oil Price Regulation: Federal Policy in the Post-Embargo Era. These and several related works by Kalt provide a comprehensive assessment of the economics and the politics of the United States’ regulation of the petroleum industry at the time. Kalt went on to produce similar research on regulation of the natural gas industry, resulting in his editing of, and writing key chapters in, Drawing the Line on Natural Gas Regulation (ed. with Frank C. Schuller, 1987) and New Horizons in Natural Gas Deregulation (ed. with Jerome Ellig, 1995).

Several publications, including “Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics” in 1984 and “The Apparent Ideological Behavior of Legislators: On-the-Job Consumption or Just a Residual?” in 1990 (both with Mark A. Zupan), are widely cited for their demonstration of the interplay of political representatives’ own views and those of their constituents in regulatory policy making. Similar themes are explored in Kalt's work on international trade policy, including: “The Political Economy of Protectionism: Tariffs and Retaliation in the Timber Industry” (1988); “The Impact of Domestic Environmental Regulatory Policy on U.S. International Competitiveness” (1988); and “Do Precedent and Legal Argument Matter in the Lumber CVD Cases?” (1996).

Kalt's expertise in the economics of regulation, energy, and natural resources has been sought by numerous organizations. Resulting engagements have included: Commissioner, President's Commission on Aviation Safety (1987–88); Steering Committee of the National Park Service’s 75th Anniversary Symposium (1991-93); Advisory Committee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Energy Division (1987-89). In addition, Kalt served over 1979-2000 as a principal lecturer in the Program of Economics for Journalists, Foundation for American Communications, teaching economic principles to working journalists in the broadcast and print media.

Indigenous governance and development

In 1986, Kalt was approached by the Crow Tribe of Montana to provide pro bono advice on the Tribe’s energy-related economic development opportunities. By 1987, together with Professor Stephen Cornell from Harvard’s Department of Sociology, Kalt had launched the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (“Harvard Project” or “Project”). Housed in Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Project focuses on what works to strengthen Indigenous communities’ economies, social conditions, institutions, and cultures — and what doesn't work. Through its teaching, pro bono advising, service, and collaborations, the Project seeks to make its research findings of useful value to leaders, policy makers, and managers in Indigenous affairs.

The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development is widely recognized for path-breaking work which undergirds the “nation building” renaissance that took hold among a large number of the 570+ federally-recognized American Indian nations beginning in the late 1970s and accelerating with the adoption of federal policies of tribal self-government in the late 1980s. This renaissance is clearly seen in the economic data, where incomes of Indian reservation citizens of tribes grew more than three times faster than the average U.S. citizen's income and on-reservation poverty was cut in half over 1989–2021. For documenting why, how, and among which tribes this progress has occurred, and for disseminating the concomitant lessons learned throughout the Indigenous world, the Project has been recognized with the National Congress of American Indians’ Public Sector Leadership Award (2010) and the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development’s First American Public Policy Award (2005). Academically, Kalt’s and Cornell’s research has been similarly recognized for its insights and rigorous methods of field research, with, for example, work on the cultural foundations of successful tribal government garnering nominations for best peer-reviewed research article in Economic Inquiry, and peers’ presentations of the Project's methods and impact as exemplars for scholars of development.

Substantively, Kalt's research (much of it in collaboration with Stephen Cornell) points to several key factors that make or break contemporary Indigenous communities’ attempts to reverse decades, and even centuries, of disempowerment and social and economic deprivation:

• Sovereignty. Indigenous self-determination through local self-government is working. When Indigenous nations make their own decisions, they consistently outperform outside decision-makers.
• Institutions. Assertions of tribal sovereignty must be backed by the ability to govern effectively. Stable governing structures and policies, fair and independent mechanisms for dispute resolution, and a separation of politics from day-to-day business and public sector management are key.
• Culture. Success in revitalizing Indigenous nations requires culturally grounded institutions of self-government that enjoy legitimacy among tribal citizens. With hundreds of different cultural systems, Indigenous communities are teaching the world that one size does not fit all and that effective governing solutions do not have to look “western”.
• Leadership. Self-determined success in nation building rests upon the capacities of leaders. Whether they are elected, community, or spiritual leaders, key individuals are called upon to carry out the necessary decisions that direct nations. Even more, they are “educators” who inform and inspire citizens to act.

Among Kalt's key publications on indigenous governance and development are:

• The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination (a principal author, with The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development), Oxford University Press, 2008.
• What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development, ed. (with Stephen Cornell), University of California, 1992.
• American Indian Self-Determination Through Self-Governance: The Only Policy That Has Ever Worked, statement before the Commission on Native Children, December 15, 2022.
• “The Role of Constitutions in Native Nation Building: Laying a Firm Foundation,” in M. Jorgensen, ed., Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development, University of Arizona Press, 2007.

Consulting

In his role as a Senior Economist at Compass Lexecon and its predecessors and prior to his retirement in 2019, Kalt testified frequently as an expert before the U.S. Congress and various state, federal, tribal, and international arbitration and judicial tribunals. In addition, he has served as an arbitrator and mediator in various disputes in the coal, oil and gas, and railroad sectors. Across his career, his engagements included:

• For 25 years, Kalt served as the lead economic witness for Canada and various Canadian provinces in the softwood lumber trade dispute with the United States, modeling the economic effects of a wide range of harvest, tariff, and quota policies.
• With extensive experience in the railroad sector, Kalt testified in several U.S. federal proceedings concerning mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. industry, frequently making the case for merger terms and conditions that would help rationalize the nation's rail network. These proceedings included the merger of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroads and the merger of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railway.
• As an expert in energy sector competition and regulation, Kalt provided analyses on behalf of private parties and governments in numerous antitrust, trade policy, tax, and contract disputes in the oil, gas, electric power, and petrochemical sectors.
• Working on behalf of both interested private and governmental parties and arbitration panels across various U.S. and international arbitrations, Kalt engaged in expert analyses of the economic issues raised in disputes in industries ranging from life insurance and gaming to government minerals taxation and private equipment leasing.

Other professional activities

Kalt serves on numerous boards and councils in arenas in which his experience and knowledge can contribute. In the field of Indigenous affairs, this service includes: founding Board of Directors of the Association for Economic Research of Indigenous Peoples (2019–present); Board of Directors of the White Mountain Apache Tribe's Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, Inc. (chair 2010–20; vice-chair 2020-present); Board of Directors, Native Governance Center, (founding board secretary 2016–2020); President's Council of Economic Advisors, Navajo Nation (2016–18); and advisory board of the Chickasaw Nation's Community Development Entity (2014–present). He has also served as mediator in a number of tribal-state and tribal-federal disputes, including disputes between the Nez Perce Tribe and the North Central Idaho Jurisdictional Alliance (MOU signed 2002), and between the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (MOU signed 1994).

Beyond Indigenous affairs, Kalt's service includes: Board of Advisors of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (2011–present); Board of Directors of the Sonoran Institute (2008–present); Investment Committee of the Board of Imago Dei Middle School (2022–present) Investment Committee of the Board of the Women’s Foundation for the State of Arizona (2015–18); Honorary Advisory Board, Centro Artistico y Cultural de Huachinera, Sonora, Mexico (2009–15); National Advisory Board of the Big Sky Institute, Montana State University (2007–11); and Board of Trustees of The Communications Institute (2003–14).

Personal life

Kalt married Judith Kaye Gans in 1977. They have two children, Jody (wife Tammy Yun Kalt; children Madeline and Joseph Oliver) and Annie (husband Jeffrey Michael Berens; children Naomi and Zera). After raising their children in the Boston area, Kalt and his wife now reside in Tucson, Arizona and at the long-time family ranch south of Billings, Montana. Kalt is an avid cutting horse competitor and is the two-time (2019 and 2020) World Senior Champion in the $50,000 Amateur division of the National Cutting Horse Association. He serves as a regional director of the Association.

References

Category:American economists Category:Living people

Category:1951 births