Robert Tollison

Robert D. Tollison (1942–October 24, 2016) was an American economist who specialized in public choice theory.

Robert Tollison came to the attention of the tobacco industry in 1977 when he co-authored an article: "Rational Choice and the Taxation of Sin", in the Journal of Public Economics, attacking the way governments imposed "their moral code upon consumers of goods that are thought to be undesirable." He was a professor of economics at Virginia Polytechnic at the time, and also the executive director of the Center for Study of Public Choice.

Tollison's first academic position as a Ph.D. was at Cornell University, where he would teach from 1969 until 1973. He then took a job at Texas A&M University where he became the economics department head after a little more than a year. He held this position with Texas A&M until 1977 when, after having spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Miami's law school, Tollison accepted a new post at Virginia Tech as professor in that school's economics department. Tollison left Virginia Tech in 1981 to work in various roles with the Federal Trade Commission until 1983.

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tollison attended local Wofford College where he earned an A.B. in business administration and economics in 1964. He completed an M.A. in economics at the University of Alabama a year later. After completing his master's in Tuscaloosa, Tollison moved to Virginia to begin teaching at Longwood University, then called "Longwood College." Shortly thereafter he commenced work on his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia. He finished his doctoral degree in 1969.