Texas Tech University enters The Bob Zadek Show through the person of economist Benjamin Powell, whose affiliation with the university is stated in four separate episodes spanning 2015 to 2022. The excerpts never describe the university as an institution — its location, founding, governance or curriculum go unmentioned — and treat it only as the academic base from which Powell’s economic research and writing reach the program.
Powell’s affiliation stated
In a December 2015 episode on immigration, guest Alex Nowrasteh cites a paper by “economist Benjamin Powell, who is an economist at Texas Tech University in West Texas,” describing Powell’s attempt to estimate the rent-seeking costs of an immigration moratorium combined with the annual economic benefits of immigration. Nowrasteh reports that Powell’s figure came to $236 billion in total, which Nowrasteh rounded down to $200 billion for ease of calculation, saying he did so to underestimate the cost of a moratorium and exaggerate its benefits so as to be as charitable as possible to the other side Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
By July 2019, host Bob Zadek introduces Powell himself as Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, a professor of economics at the Rawls College of Business, and North American editor of the Review of Austrian Economics. Zadek frames the episode around the cost of advanced degrees in economics, proposing that travel to inexpensive countries could substitute for a doctorate, and welcomes Powell back to discuss his book Socialism Sucks Socialism… Still Not Cool (2019).
In a May 2020 episode, Nowrasteh again names Powell as “a professor at Texas Tech University,” this time as co-author of a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press analyzing whether immigrants from poor countries undermine institutions in developed countries Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020).
A February 2022 episode identifies Powell as Executive Director of the Free Market Institute and a professor of economics at Texas Tech University, a senior fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, and holder of a PhD in economics from George Mason University. Zadek introduces him to discuss the edited volume Wretched Refuse: Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society The Economics of Immigration (2022).
Research cited on the show
The 2015 episode uses Powell’s cost estimate as the quantitative spine of an argument about immigration and national security. Nowrasteh explains that he obtained figures on Americans killed by Islamic terrorists from the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank that also tracks deaths by other types of terrorists, including what he describes as 48 deaths since 9/11 of domestic terrorists such as white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Against those numbers he sets Powell’s $236 billion estimate, rounded to $200 billion, and argues that closing the border to pursue a national security goal cannot be defended on a rational, objective measure Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
Zadek presses the point in economic terms, asking whether Americans would be willing to strip the economy of about $200 billion annually to possibly save a few lives that probably would not be saved anyway, since a jihadist would find another way. He acknowledges it might seem callous to reduce the conversation to economics but insists some rational basis is needed, and dismisses the objection that even one life is not worth the cost as silly, given what is spent in any walk of life to save a life. Nowrasteh agrees the conclusion is fair and notes that libertarians and conservatives apply the same reasoning to environmental risk and gun ownership, observing that the value of human life is not infinite, since if it were no one would ever leave the house Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
The institutions question
The 2020 episode returns to Powell’s work in a different register. Zadek asks Nowrasteh, at his invitation, to make the strongest argument against open borders, and Nowrasteh offers the hypothesis that immigrants might bring anti-capitalist ideas, voting patterns and opinions about government that could undermine the economic and political institutions — relative free markets, relative rule of law, relative security — that make rich countries rich. He says that he and Powell wrote a book on the question, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, analyzing all the evidence on whether immigrants from poor countries undermine institutions in developed countries, and that they find no evidence this has ever happened anywhere Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020).
Nowrasteh goes further, saying they find evidence that immigrants improve institutions in places like the United States, and offers a mechanism: immigrants undermine labor unions, which cannot organize effectively where immigrants are present, and labor unions are the most powerful vehicle by which left-wing politicians gain power and organize. He notes that the period of most closed immigration, from the mid-1920s through the mid-to-late 1960s, coincided with tremendous growth in federal and state government as labor unions grew, and that unions began to shrink in the late 1960s and early 1970s as immigration laws were liberalized. Zadek responds with a California observation — that people in Colorado, Utah and Texas resist Californians moving in with progressive voting habits — and Nowrasteh answers that Californians who settle in Texas actually vote more Republican than native-born Texans, so that interstate migration makes Texas slightly more Democratic than it would otherwise be, a net retrenchment of conservative policies. Zadek closes the exchange by calling California’s two major exports avocados and conservatives Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020).
Across episodes
The topic develops across the excerpts in a consistent direction rather than reversing. In 2015 Powell appears through a single cited paper, a cost estimate that Nowrasteh uses and adjusts; by 2019 Powell is the guest, introduced with his Texas Tech titles and his book Socialism Sucks; in 2020 his co-authored work on institutions is described by Nowrasteh as forthcoming; and in 2022 Powell returns as the featured guest on Wretched Refuse, with Zadek describing the book as presenting the arguments pro and con on immigration, open borders and work visas, and asking whether the country can afford more immigrants or afford not to have them. The through-line is Powell’s research on immigration economics, advanced first by Nowrasteh’s citation and later by Powell in his own voice, with the university named each time as the institutional setting for that work Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015)Socialism… Still Not Cool (2019)Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)The Economics of Immigration (2022).
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts say nothing about Texas Tech University as an institution: no founding date, location, enrollment, budget, governance or academic program is described. The Rawls College of Business and the Free Market Institute are named only as Powell’s affiliations, without further detail about either. No other Texas Tech faculty, student, administrator or alumnus is mentioned in the excerpts, and no episode treats the university itself as a subject of discussion. The university’s presence in the article is therefore entirely a function of Powell’s role as a recurring guest and cited researcher.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts never state where Texas Tech University is located, when it was founded, or how it is governed, and they describe no campus, department or program beyond the names attached to Powell. The Free Market Institute and the Rawls College of Business appear only as affiliations, with no account of their work or structure. No other person connected to the university is named in the excerpts, and no episode takes the university itself as its topic. Everything the article can say about Texas Tech rests on Powell’s title and on research attributed to him.