Fred Harrison (author)

In 2015, Harrison published the first of a trilogy of Handbooks on Humanity. He integrated cultural studies with economic theory to test hypotheses that seek to explain why governments persist with sub-optimal fiscal policies. Harrison concludes that western ("neo-liberal") culture has been shaped by rent-seeking to deliver sub-optimum outcomes through tax policies that have the permanent effect of mal-distributing income and retarding economic growth.

In 2009, Dirk Bezemer, a professor of economics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, noted that Fred Harrison was one of the earliest to have predicted the global financial crisis

Harrison has been very active in the UK media, with dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, and many TV and radio interviews. As an example, in 2005 there was an almost unanimous view that the rise in house prices would moderate and that any talk of a "housing bubble" was both premature and indicated a false understanding of debt economics.

With the fall of the USSR, Fred Harrison took an opportunity to work with the Russian government in developing economic policy. He spent 10 years in Russia advising their Federal Parliament (Duma) and local authorities on property tax reform and establishment of land markets. He conducted long-range economic studies, attempting to steer economic policy towards investment in schools, science and healthcare. He was the organizer of the Duma's Land Policy Congress and conducted several hearings and studies commissioned by a wide range of Russian authorities. In 2002 he ended his work in Russia when it became apparent that the trend of investment from resource rents was not into the ventures he had recommended but instead into what he termed conspicuous consumption, such as buying western real estate and football clubs. He wrote "The Silver Bullet" as a response to his disaffection for the choices of the Russian Duma on these and other issues.

After his sojourn in Russia, he returned to his work in England. He had already become the Research Director of the Land Research Trust, London, in 1998 and worked as a corporate business advisor, as well as giving lectures on property and tax policy. He claims to have warned Gordon Brown as far back as 1997 that the UK economy would hit the peak of the cycle in 2007 – and turn down into a depression in 2010. Since then, his main focus in both writing and lecturing has been to warn of what he considers to be the dangers of using land and real estate as the primary drivers of economic growth. His work links economic policy to social reform. Harrison's macro-economic analysis is based on the theory that business conforms to a pattern of 18-year cycles, determined by the unique characteristics of the land market. According to Harrison, economists erroneously "assume that the health of the property market depends upon the condition of the rest of the economy. In fact ... property is the key factor that shapes the business cycle, not the other way around."

Fred Harrison (born 1944) is a British author, economic commentator and corporate policy advisor, notable for his stances on land reform and belief that an over reliance on land, property and mortgage weakens economic structures and makes companies vulnerable to economic collapse.