Adam Michel’s Mercatus Fellowship Story
Bridging Ideas and Action: How the MA Fellowship Launched Adam Michel's Career in Real-World Policy Impact
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dam Michel's journey into economics and public policy began almost by accident. After a Koch Internship placement at Mercatus in 2013, he quickly found himself drawn into a world of ideas that had real power to shape policy. "I applied to the Koch internship program. I was placed at Mercatus not knowing what Mercatus was or sort of anything about GMU," he recalls. That initial exposure changed everything. Encouraged to apply for the MA Fellowship, Adam discovered a passion for economics as a tool for understanding and improving the world. Today, as Director of Tax Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Adam credits the MA Fellowship with giving him both the rigorous economic foundation and the practical communication skills that enable him to bridge deep academic work with urgent policy debates.
It became clear to me that economics is just a sort of comprehensive lens with which to view the world.
Adam's time as an MA Fellow revealed something crucial: "It became clear to me that economics is just a sort of comprehensive lens with which to view the world," he says. But what truly set his Mercatus experience apart was not just the exposure to big ideas, it was the hard skills he gained that made him effective in the world of public policy.
The MA Fellowship was a two-year, full-time fellowship program for students pursuing a master's degree in economics at George Mason University who were interested in careers in public policy. MA Fellows gained advanced training in applied economics while working alongside Mercatus scholars and staff on pertinent policy areas such as regulations, fiscal policy, financial markets, technology policy, and trade. Through this hands-on experience, fellows learned to research complex policy issues and communicate sound economic analysis through academic articles, policy publications, congressional testimony, opinion pieces, and blog posts.
The Mercatus experience grounded me more deeply in the principles and the sort of more rigorous work that ultimately then informs the public policy work that I do on a day-to-day basis.
"The most important skill that I use on an everyday basis and probably the reason that I have succeeded so far in my career is the ability to write clearly and concisely and distill complex topics for a lay audience," Adam explains. At Mercatus, this wasn't theoretical. He worked closely with scholars like Jason Fichtner, drafting long-form research, policy papers, and op-eds, getting real editorial feedback and learning to communicate not just to academics, but to policymakers and the public.
"The Mercatus experience grounded me more deeply in the principles and the sort of more rigorous work that ultimately then informs the public policy work that I do on a day-to-day basis," he says.
The deep connections that I was able to build with folks working in policy at Mercatus set me up for my desired career path.
The network he built through Mercatus proved equally essential. "The deep connections that I was able to build with folks working in policy at Mercatus set me up for my desired career path," Adam says. Those relationships with scholars, mentors, and peers continue to shape his work across think tanks, Capitol Hill, and the broader policy world.
"There’s just a lack of talent willing to and able to work in these complicated policy areas that requires a sort of deep expertise but also an ability to distill the complex for a less sophisticated audience,” Adam indicates. Mercatus fellowships create that chorus and Adam's journey demonstrates how the MA Fellowship equipped students who understand the importance of ideas and have the tools to turn those ideas into action.