Peter Morici

Peter George Morici, Jr. (born December 9, 1948) is an American economist and Professor of International Business at the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a graduate of SUNY Albany in New York State where he received his Ph.D in Economics in 1974. He is a nationally syndicated columnist, with his articles appearing in many publications such as The Washington Times, The Hill, Townhall.com, Newsmax, and several regional newspapers throughout the United States. Morici often appears as a guest on Newsmax TV and Fox News Channel.

From 1974 to 1976, Morici taught at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. In 1976, he joined the Federal Energy Administration. In 1978 he moved to the National Planning Association in Washington where he was elected a Vice President in 1983. He joined the University of Maine as a Professor of Economics in 1988 and was Director of its Canadian-American Center from 1990 to 1993. He also served as chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Morici is the author of 18 books. He is currently a senior contributor for TheStreet.com and also writes articles for Moneynews.com

Morici made headlines in a July 2014 piece in the Hill where he argued that the unemployment rate failed to take into account abuses in H-1B immigration visas and students who would be in the workforce but they were "duped" into enrolling in "useless programs" due to the prevalence of financial aid. Taking those circumstances into account, the real unemployment rate was 18%. This figure was quoted by Donald Trump in a speech on June 16, 2015, where Trump announced he was running for president. FactCheck.org then ran a piece on Morici's methodology bringing him into the limelight once again. He now believes the real unemployment rate to be 15%.

Morici is noted for wearing bow ties.

• Reconciling Trade and the Environment in the World Trade Organization
• Labor Standards in the Global Trading System
• Antitrust in the Global Trading System: Reconciling U.S., Japanese and EU Approaches
• Setting U.S. Goals for WTO Negotiations
• The Trade Deficit: Where Does It Come from and What Does It Do
• Free Trade in the Americas: An Architecture for Hemispheric Integration
• Trade Talks with Mexico: A Time for Realism
• Making Free Trade Work: The Canada-U.S. Agreement
• Reassessing American Competitiveness