Earl Grinols

Earl Grinols is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Baylor University. His research includes the effect of legalized casinos in the United States and the economics of a national health care policy.

He attended the University of Michigan for undergraduate study where he was a James B. Angell scholar, and received two summa cum laude degrees from the University of Minnesota in economics and mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977.

Grinols has taught at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois in addition to Baylor University. He has worked at the Department of the Treasury and was a Senior Economist with the Council of Economic Advisors.

In 1994 testimony to Congress, Grinols was one of the first academicians to recommend the formation of a national commission on gambling. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission was formed two years later in 1996, and issued its report, among other recommendations calling for a moratorium on the expansion of gambling in the United States in 1999.

In 2004 Grinols' book, Gambling in America: Costs and Benefits, was published by Cambridge University Press. His work "Casinos, Crime, and Community Costs" (co-author Professor David Mustard) studied all 3,165 counties in the United States for a twenty year period to establish statistical links between casinos and FBI Index I crime.

In February 2007, Grinols became somewhat of a celebrity in the Speech and Debate universe. The Public Forum Debate topic for that month was "Resolved: The costs of legalized casino gambling in the Unites States outweigh the benefits." Because of having a high score on Google's PageRank algorithm, Grinols' research was a favorite amongst debaters. Despite having anti-casino conclusions, Grinols' research was used on both sides of the debate, a testament to his credibility some have surmised.

Grinols current research focuses on the implications of economic efficiency for intervening in the economy to achieve universal health insurance coverage.