Abigail Blanco is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida. She is a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute, a non-partisan research and educational think tank based out of Oakland, California. Blanco is also an affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an affiliated scholar with the Foundation for Economic Education. She earned her PhD in Economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in 2015, and graduated with a B.A. in economics and business administration with an additional concentration in mathematics from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Blanco's broader research interests include Austrian Economics, Political Economy and Public Choice, Defense and Peace Economics, and Institutions and Economic Development. Her work includes topics surrounding the U.S. military and national defense, including, domestic police militarization, arm sales, weapons as foreign aid, the cost of military mobilization, and the political economy of military technology. She is currently researching how democratic institutions maybe particularly susceptible to propaganda as well as the relationship between militarism and domestic extremism.

Professors, Researcher, Scholar, Business, Education