Biography

Nikolai G. Wenzel is Professor of Economics and Director of the MA in Economics at the new, virtual Universidad de las Hespérides (Spain). He is also a Senior Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research (MA). He formerly held the L.V. Hackley Chair for the Study of Capitalism and Free Enterprise at Fayetteville State University (NC), where he was Distinguished Professor of Economics.  Dr. Wenzel is a Research Fellow of the Institut Economique Molinari (Paris France); from 2008 until the center closed in 2019, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Paris Law School (Center for Law & Economics).  Dr. Wenzel has held appointments as Associate Professor at Flagler College, Visiting Assistant Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Wallace and Marion Reemelin Chair in Free-Market Economics (Assistant Professor) at Hillsdale College.  

Dr. Wenzel has a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University (where he was an H.B. Earhart doctoral fellow) and a BSFS cum laude in international affairs from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Dr. Wenzel is a former Foreign Service Officer with the US State Department; he served at the US Embassy in Mexico City, where he was vice consul and special assistant to the US ambassador.  He subsequently worked for various free-market think tanks while completing his doctoral coursework.  

Dr. Wenzel is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the Philadelphia Society, the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, the Association of Private Enterprise Education, and the National Association of Scholars.  He sat for four years on the Executive Committee of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and is currently on the Board of Scholars of the Foundation for Economic Education.  From 2014 until the communist takeover in 2019, he taught political economy for the Fund for American Studies (TFAS) at Hong Kong University. He has subsequently taught for TFAS in Chile, Croatia, Czechia, and Guatemala.

Dr. Wenzel has published more than seventy scholarly articles and book chapters, and is the co-author of a book on the libertarian-conservative debate (Stanford University Press, 2016).  He is the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy and sits on the editorial board of Cosmos and Taxis and the Journal des Libertés. He is a frequent contributor at aier.org and lawliberty.org, among other online sites.

When not writing on political economy, Dr. Wenzel dabbles in wine economics.  He is a member and former president of the Georgetown Chimes, Georgetown University's barbershop group since 1946, and an occasional bluegrass singer and guitar picker.  He has traveled to 73 countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe, and all 50 US states.  He is fluent in English, French, and Spanish, with conversational German and Italian.