Stephen W. Salant (born c. 1945) is an economist who has done extensive research in applied microeconomics (mostly in the fields of natural resources and industrial organization). His 1975 model of speculative attacks in the gold market (with Dale Henderson) was adapted by Paul Krugman and others to explain speculative attacks in foreign exchange markets. Hundreds of journal articles and books on financial speculative attacks followed.

In a series of six articles, Salant has continued to focus instead on real speculative attacks. These may be divided into two categories: (1) speculative attacks induced by government policies such as total allowable catch quotas in fisheries, H1-B immigration quotas, commodity price ceilings, and most recently the proposed price-collars on tradable emissions permits; and (2) speculative attacks that are naturally occurring rather than induced by government policy such as the precipitous depletions of storable common properties (e.g. “oil rushes”).

In industrial organization, he has contributed to the literatures on horizontal mergers, price discrimination, durable goods monopoly, and cartels.

Salant also has a long-standing interest in the Alger Hiss case and has published in that area as well.

He earned his B.A. in mathematics at Columbia University in 1967, and his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. He worked at the Federal Reserve Board and the Rand Corporation, where he coedited The RAND Journal of Economics. Currently, Dr. Salant is professor of economics at the University of Michigan and a nonresident fellow at Resources for the Future.