Editing American Enterprise Institute (section)

===Beginnings (1938–1954)===
AEI grew out of the '''American Enterprise Association''' (AEA), which was founded in 1938 by a group of New York businessmen led by [[Lewis H. Brown]].<ref name="AEI History">{{cite web|last=AEI|title=History of AEI|url=http://www.aei.org/history|access-date=July 6, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090708195505/http://www.aei.org/history|archive-date=July 8, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> AEI's founders included executives from [[Bristol-Myers]], [[Chemical Bank]], [[Chrysler]], [[Eli Lilly and Company|Eli Lilly]], [[General Mills]], and [[Paine Webber]].<ref name="AEI-Trustees">{{cite web|url=https://www.aei.org/about-old/board-of-trustees/|title=Board of Trustees|publisher=AEI|access-date=April 2, 2020|archive-date=February 29, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200229144128/https://www.aei.org/about-old/board-of-trustees/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1943, AEA's main offices were moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. during a time when [[United States Congress|Congress]]'s portfolio had vastly increased during [[World War II]]. AEA opposed the [[New Deal]], and aimed to propound [[classical liberalism|classical liberal]] arguments for limited government.{{citation needed|date=June 2018}} In 1944, AEA convened an Economic Advisory Board to set a high standard for research; this eventually evolved into the Council of Academic Advisers, which over the decades included economists and social scientists, including [[Ronald Coase]], [[Martin Feldstein]], [[Milton Friedman]], [[Roscoe Pound]], and [[James Q. Wilson]].{{citation needed|date=June 2018}}

AEA's early work in Washington, D.C. involved commissioning and distributing legislative analyses to Congress, which developed AEA's relationships with [[Melvin Laird]] and [[Gerald Ford]].<ref name="Van Atta">{{cite book|last=Van Atta|first=Dale|title=With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2008|location=Madison, Wisc.|pages=55–56, 509|isbn=978-0-299-22680-0}}</ref> Brown eventually shifted AEA's focus to commissioning studies of government policies. These subjects ranged from [[fiscal policy|fiscal]] to [[monetary policy]] and including [[health care]] and [[energy]] policy, and authors such as [[Earl Butz]], [[John Lintner]], former New Dealer [[Raymond Moley]], and [[Felix Morley]]. Brown died in 1951, and AEA languished as a result. In 1952, a group of young policymakers and public intellectuals including Laird, [[William J. Baroody Sr.]], [[Paul McCracken (economist)|Paul McCracken]], and [[Murray Weidenbaum]], met to discuss resurrecting AEA.<ref name="Van Atta"/> In 1954, Baroody became executive vice president of the association.