Richard L. Stroup, a longtime friend of the Cato Institute, died November 18. He will be remembered as a pioneer of “free‐​market environmentalism” and as a teacher of economics, both to college students with his widely used textbook coauthored with James D. Gwartney, Economics: Private and Public Choice, now in its 17th edition, and to a broader audience with Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know about Wealth and Prosperity. His primer on environmental economics, Eco‐​Nomics: What Everyone Should Know about Economics and the Environment, was published by the Cato Institute and received the 2004 Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award. An updated edition was published in 2016. Rick also wrote frequently for Regulation and Cato Journal.

He spent most of his career at Montana State University, later teaching at North Carolina State. In 1980, he helped found the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) along with his colleagues Terry Anderson, John Baden, and P.J. Hill. During the Reagan administration, he headed the Office of Policy Analysis at the Department of the Interior. I remember his commenting then that if you had a reputation for strong beliefs and firm principles–as he did–you got much less wining and dining from lobbyists while you were in government.

Rick is survived by his wife Jane Shaw Stroup, a journalist and writer, most recently on history.