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David Boaz (born 1953, Mayfield, Kentucky) is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank. He played a key role in the Institute's development and the American libertarian movement.

He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer, published in 1997 by the Free Press and described by the Los Angeles Times as "a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas," the editor of The Libertarian Reader, and co-editor of the Cato Handbook for Congress (2003) and the Cato Handbook on Policy (2005). He frequently discusses such topics as education choice, the growth of government, the ownership society, his support of drug legalization, and the rise of libertarianism on national television and radio shows.

Boaz's March 1988 New York Times article on the futility of the drug war generated much debate over the decriminalization of drugs. His articles have also published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate. He also has appeared on ABC's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CNN's Crossfire, NPR's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media. Boaz, a graduate of Vanderbilt University, is the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "David Boaz", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0