# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/robert-higgs
# Generated: 2026-08-13T06:00:03.395Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/robert-higgs"
name: "Robert Higgs"
slug: "robert-higgs"
description: "Robert Higgs is an American economic historian and economist. He is known for research on the growth of the United States government, especially the ratchet effect, the idea that state power expands during wars and other crises and only partly recedes afterward, which he developed in Crisis and Leviathan (1987). He is a retired senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute, where he founded and later served as editor at large of The Independent Review, and he has held faculty appointments at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, and Seattle University. In an essay he has described his political philosophy as a libertarian anarchism."
tagline: "1944- American economist"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Robert_Higgs-independent.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1944-02-01"
livingStatus: "LIVING"
scores:
  popularity:           48.11
  momentum:             4.024390243902437
  historical:           11.16022533333333
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
sources:
  - url: "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AA_%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%BA%D8%B2"
    title: "روبرت هيغز"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AA_%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%AC%D8%B2"
    title: "روبرت هيجز"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AA_%D9%87%DB%8C%DA%AF%D8%B2"
    title: "رابرت هیگز"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B3%D1%81%2C_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82"
    title: "Хиггс, Роберт"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs"
    title: "Robert Higgs"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82_%D0%A5%D1%96%D0%B3%D0%B3%D1%81"
    title: "Роберт Хіггс"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2723265"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Imported from discovery source: wikidata-dump