Hester Peirce

Hester Peirce is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before joining Mercatus, Peirce served on Sen. Richard Shelby’s staff on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. She served at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a staff attorney and as counsel to SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins. Before that, she clerked for Judge Roger B. Andewelt on the Court of Federal Claims and was an associate at a Washington, D.C.-based law firm. Peirce currently serves on the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee. Peirce’s work has been published in such outlets as The Hill and American Banker, and she is a regular contributor to Real Clear Markets. She is the editor of, and contributor to, the book Dodd-Frank: What It Does and Why It’s Flawed, published by Mercatus in 2012. Peirce received her Bachelor of Arts in economics from Case Western Reserve University and her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.