Our Vision Advisory Council Staff Experts


Experts


Photo of Gerard F. Anderson

Gerard F. Anderson

Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Gerard F. Anderson, PhD is a professor of health policy and management and professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is currently conducting research on chronic conditions, comparative insurance systems in developing countries, medical education, health care payment reform, and technology diffusion.

Featured Work:
  • Expanding Priorities - Confronting Chronic Disease in Countries with Low Income Gerard F. Anderson and E. Chu. New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 356(3):209-211, January 18, 2007.
  • From 'Soak the Rich' to 'Soak the Poor': Recent Trends in Hospital Pricing Gerard F. Anderson. Health Affairs, Vol. 26(3):780-789, May/June 2007.
  • Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage Gap "Navigating the 'Doughnut Hole' With Patients" Gerard F. Anderson, S.A. Berkowitz and G. Gerstenblith. JAMA, Vol. 297(8): 868-870, February 28, 2007.

Photo of Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

Reuven specializes in international taxation and international law, and is widely published in these subject areas.

Featured Work:
  • Comparative Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the European Court of Justice and the U.S. Supreme Court's Tax Jurisprudence, James R. Hines Jr. and M. Lang, co-editors. The Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer. 2007.
  • International Tax as International Law: U.S. Tax Law and the International Tax Regime, New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007 (forthcoming.)

Photo of Michael S. Barr

Michael S. Barr

Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

Michael S. Barr is Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where he teaches Financial Institution Regulation, International Financial Regulation, Transnational Law, and Jurisdiction and Choice of Law. He is also Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Featured Work:
  • Insufficient Funds: Savings, Assets, Credit and Banking Among Low- and Moderate-Income Households, with Rebecca Blank, Co-Editor. Russel Sage Press, forthcoming.
  • Building Inclusive Financial Systems: A Framework for Financial Access, with Anjali Kumar and Robert Litan, Co-Editors. Brookings Institution Press, 2007.

Photo of Lily Batchelder

Lily Batchelder

Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy, New York University School of Law

Lily's research focuses on income taxation, wealth transfer taxation, income volatility, and social insurance.

Featured Work:
  • Efficiency and Tax Incentives: The Case for Refundable Tax Credits, 59 Stanford Law Review 23 (2006) (with Fred T. Goldberg, Jr. and Peter R. Orszag).
  • Taxing the Poor: Income Averaging Reconsidered, 40 Harvard Journal on Legislation 395 (2003).


Photo of Rebecca M. Blank

Rebecca M. Blank

Under Secretary for Economics Affairs, Department of Commerce

Dr. Blank's research has focused on the interaction between the macroeconomy, government anti-poverty programs, and the behavior and well-being of low-income families.

Featured Work:
Photo of Andrew Caplin

Andrew Caplin

Professor of Economics, New York University

Andrew Caplin is professor of economics at New York University and the co-director of NYU's Center for Experimental Social Science. He conducts theoretical research in microeconomics, macroeconomics, political economy, economics and psychology, and neuroeconomics, as well as survey research on patterns of life cycle wealth accumulation and decumulation.

Featured Work:

Photo of Kimberly A. Clausing

Kimberly A. Clausing

Professor of Economics, Reed College

Kim's current research studies the taxation of multinational firms, exploring how international tax incentives affect international trade, government revenues, and the location of economic activity.

Featured Work:
  • Corporate Tax Revenues in OECD Countries, International Tax and Public Finance, 14, April 2007, 115-33.
  • International Tax Avoidance and U.S. International Trade, National Tax Journal, 59(2), June 2006, 269-87.
  • The Role of U.S. Tax Policy in Offshoring, Susan Collins and Lael Brainard, eds. Brookings Trade Forum: Offshoring White-Collar Work. 2006. Washington: Brookings. 457-482.

Photo of Noel B. Cunningham

Noël B. Cunningham

Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

Professor Cunningham's teaching and scholarship has focused mainly on tax policy and the taxation of partnerships. He has written on a variety of diverse issues including the taxation of imputed income, the preference for capital gains and taxing capital income.

Featured Work:
  • The Logic of Subchapter K: A Conceptual Guide to the Taxation of Partnerships, with Laura E. Cunningham. 3rd Edition, West 2006.
  • The Carried Interest Controversy: Let's Not Get Carried Away, with Mitchell Engler. 61 Tax L. Rev. (2008).

Photo of Akash Deep

Akash Deep

Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

A Senior Lecturer at Harvard University, Akash Deep is an expert in financial risk management and derivatives, infrastructure finance, financial institutions, and pension funds. He has provided policy advice to various governments as well as international institutions such as the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations and the Bank for International Settlements.

Featured Work:
  • Putting Pension Funds to Work at Home: New Financial Instruments for Old Liabilities, Akash Deep and Heather Rowan, Report to the Latin-American Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, 2005.
  • Housing Markets and Economic Growth: Lessons from the US Refinancing Boom, Akash Deep and Dietrich Domanski, BIS Quarterly Review, September 2002.
  • A Firm Foundation for Project Finance, The Financial Times, June 6, 2001.

Photo of Greg J. Duncan

Greg J. Duncan

Edwina S. Tarry Professor, Northwestern University

Greg J. Duncan is the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University. An economist, Duncan has conducted research on poverty and welfare dynamics and their links to children's achievement and other development outcomes.

Featured Work:


Photo of Susan M. Dynarski

Susan M. Dynarski

Associate Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Sue has a special interest in the interaction of inequality and higher education, and has studied the impact of grants and loans on college attendance; the impact of state policy on college completion rates; and the distributional aspects of college savings incentives.

Featured Work:


Ezekiel J. Emanuel

M.D., PhD, National Institutes of Health

Dr. Emanuel is a breast oncologist whose research has encompassed the quality and cost of end of life care, the physician-patient relationship, and the ethics of research with human beings. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Featured Work:

  • What Cannot be Said on Television about Health Care E.J. Emanuel. JAMA Mary 16, 2007; 297:2131-3.
  • Health Care Vouchers - A Proposal for Universal Coverage E.J. Emanuel and V.R. Fuchs. New England Journal of Medicine 2005; 352(12):1255-1260.
  • Access and Ability to Pay: The Ethics of a Tiered Medical Care System E.J. Emanuel and B. Krohmal. Archives of Internal Medicine 2007; 167(5):433-437.
  • Health Care Reform: Why? What? When? E.J. Emanuel and V.R. Fuchs. Health Affairs 2005; 24(6): 1399-1414.

Photo of Mitchell Engler

Mitchell Engler

Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

Professor Engler joined the faculty at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, in 1999, where he presently is a Professor of Law. He has written extensively about matters of tax policy.

Featured Work:
  • Progressive Consumption Taxes, 57 Hastings L.J. 55 (2005).
  • The Carried Interest Controversy: Let's Not Get Carried Away, with Noel B. Cunningham. 61 Tax L. Rev. (2008).

Photo of Molly Fifer

Molly E. Fifer

Princeton University

A graduate student in economics at Princeton University, Molly's research focuses on education and the economics of well-being.

Featured Work:



Photo of Richard G. Frank

Richard G. Frank

Professor of Health Economics, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; and John F. Kennedy School of Government

Richard is the Margaret T. Morris Professor of Health Economics at Harvard Medical School and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. He advises several state mental health and substance abuse agencies on issues related to financing of care, and his work on drug pricing and mental health services has earned him multiple prizes.


Featured Work:

  • Mending the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit: Improving Consumer Choice and Restructuring Purchasing, Richard G. Frank and Joseph P. Newhouse, Discussion Paper 2007-03, The Hamilton Project (2007)
  • Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the United States Since 1950, Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied, Baltimore Johns Hopkins Press (2006)
  • Behavioral Economics and Health Economics, Richard G. Frank, in P. Diamond and H. Vartianen (eds), Behavioral Economics and its Applications, Princeton: Princeton University Press (2007)

Photo of Richard B. Freeman

Richard B. Freeman

Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Richard is the Program Director for Labor Studies at the National Bureau of Economic Research and co-director of the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance. His primary fields of interest are labor economics and institutions, inequality, crime, philanthropy, European labor markets, computer simulation modeling, and trade unionism.

Featured Work:


Photo of Victor R. Fuchs

Victor R. Fuchs, Ph.D.

Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

Fuchs uses economics to analyze the determinants of health and the determinants of the cost of care. He combines analytical results with his understanding of American values to make recommendations for health care reform.

Featured Work:

  • Employment-Based Health Insurance: Past, Present, and Future Victor R. Fuchs and Alain C. Enthoven. Health Affairs vol. 25, 6 (2006)
  • Health Care Expenditures Reexamined Victor R. Fuchs. Annals of Internal Medicine vol. 143, 1 (2005)
  • Air Pollution and Medical Care Use by Older Americans: A Cross-Area Analysis Victor R. Fuchs and S.R. Frank. Health Affairs vol. 21, 6 (2002)

Photo of William G. Gale

William G. Gale

Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution

William Gale is Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. He conducts research on a variety of economic issues, focusing particularly on tax policy, fiscal policy, pensions and saving behavior.

Featured Work:


Photo of Austan Goolsbee

Austan Goolsbee

Professor of Economics, Univerisity of Chicago, G.S.B.

Named one of the World Economic Forum's 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow and one of the Financial Times' six Gurus of the Future/Best Under 40, Austan's research is focused on the effects of taxes on wages, commerce, and other behavior.

Featured Work:


Photo of Robert Gordon

Robert Gordon

Managing Director for Resource Allocation, New York City Public Schools

Previously legislative director for Senator John Edwards and law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Robert has recently written about education reform and credit markets.

Featured Work:


Photo of Mark H. Greenberg

Mark H. Greenberg

Executive Director, Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy; Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Mr. Greenberg has written extensively on federal and state low-income issues, including welfare reform; workforce policy; child care and early education; tax policy and others. He frequently provides technical assistance to state and local governments regarding poverty reduction strategies.

Featured Work:


Photo of Jonathan Gruber

Jonathan Gruber

Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, Jon's current research is on the economics of employer-provided health care, the effects of the Social Security program on retirement behavior, and the economics of smoking.

Featured Work:


Photo of Jacob Hacker

Jacob S. Hacker

Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and Fellow, New America Foundation

Formerly a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Jacob studies U.S. public policy in historical and cross-national perspective. He is currently heading a Social Science Research Council project on the "privatization of risk" and co-chairing the 2007 annual conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Featured Work:

  • Universal Insurance: Enhancing Economic Security to Promote Opportunity, Discussion Paper 2006-07, The Hamilton Project (2006)
  • The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement—And How You Can Fight Back (Oxford University Press, 2006)
  • Medicare Plus: Increasing Health Coverage by Expanding Medicare, Economic and Social Research Institute (2001)

Photo of Harry J. Holzer

Harry J. Holzer

Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University

Harry J. Holzer is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, and a former Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. His research focuses primarily on labor markets for less-skilled and disadvantaged workers.

Featured Work:



Photo of J. Mark Iwry

J. Mark Iwry

Non-Resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Mark Iwry is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Principal of the Retirement Security Project, Research Professor at Georgetown University, and Of Counsel to the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. He served as Benefits Tax Counsel at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1995 to 2001.

Featured Work:


Photo of Louis S. Jacobson

Louis S. Jacobson

Senior Economist, CNA

The primary foci of Dr. Louis Jacobson's research has been estimating the cost of job loss and the ability of One-Stop and community college services to offset those losses.

    Featured Work:

    • Pathways to Boosting the Earnings of Low-Income Students by Increasing Their Educational Attainment, Jacobson, Louis S. and Christine Mokher. 2008. Report prepared for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Hudson Institute and CNA, Washington, D.C.
    • Evaluation of Labor Exchange Services in a One-Stop Delivery System Environment: Final Report, Jacobson, Louis S., Ian Petta, Amy Shimshak, and Regina Yudd. 2004. U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration Occasional Paper 2004-09, Department of Labor, Washington, DC.

    Photo of David C. John

    David C. John

    Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation

    David John is Managing Director to The Retirement Security Project and a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Mr. John serves as Heritage's lead analyst on issues relating to pensions, financial institutions, asset building, and Social Security reform.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Thomas Kalil

      Thomas Kalil

      Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology, UC Berkeley, and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

      Tom develops major new multi-disciplinary research and education initiatives at the intersection of information technology, nanotechnology, Microsystems, and biology. Previously, he served as the Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Technology and Economic Policy, and the Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Thomas J. Kane

      Thomas J. Kane

      Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

      Formerly a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, Tom is heading up a university-wide research center, partnering with school districts to study teacher quality, public school choice and other matters of district policy.

      Featured Work:


      Nancy Killefer

      Senior Director, McKinsey & Company

      Previously Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer of the Treasury Department, Nancy is head of McKinsey's Washington, DC office. As a leader of McKinsey's Government Practice, she specializes in developing strategies and improving organizational effectiveness for a wide range of clients.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Edward D. Kleinbard

      Edward D. Kleinbard

      Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

      Ed is widely recognized as one of the elite tax lawyers in the United States. His practice focuses on federal income tax matters, including taxation of new financial products, financial institutions and international mergers and acquisitions. He regularly lectures at New York University and is a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.


      Photo of Lori Kletzer

      Lori G. Kletzer

      Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz and Senior Fellow, Institute for International Economics

      In addition to her research on the domestic labor market effects of globalization, Lori's research has focused on the causes and consequences of job displacement, job training, racial differences in the incidence of job loss, and the microeconomics of college choice, careers, and wages.

      Featured work:


      Photo of Jeffrey Kling

      Jeffrey R. Kling

      Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies, Brookings Institution

      Having previously served on the economics faculty at Princeton and as Special Assistant to the Secretary at the Department of Labor, Jeff is now co-director of the Policy Evaluation Project, which coordinates randomized experiments to test policy innovations. He is also examining unemployment insurance and other aspects of social insurance in the U.S.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Alan B. Krueger

      Alan B. Krueger

      Bendheim Professor Of Economics And Public Policy, Princeton University

      Previously the Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, Alan has written extensively on the economics of education and labor and writes a monthly column on economics for the New York Times called The Economic Scene.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Jeanne M. Lambrew

      Jeanne M. Lambrew

      Associate Professor, The George Washington University, and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

      Jeanne Lambrew is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and teaches health policy at The George Washington University. She conducts policy-relevant research on the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, and long-term care. Lambrew was previously the program associate director for health at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the senior health analyst at the National Economic Council. She played a central role in drafting and implementing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, in addition to other major health-care proposals.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Robert Z. Lawrence

      Robert Z. Lawrence

      Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, Harvard Kennedy School

      Robert Z. Lawrence is the Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. His research focuses on Trade Policy.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of David Lewis

      David Lewis

      Senior Vice President, HDR Corporation

      David Lewis is Senior Vice President with HDR. His professional interests include the economic analysis of human rights in relation to people with disabilities; the facilitation of public-private partnerships; and the extension of Cost-Benefit Analysis to accommodate the productivity effects of private investment in advanced logistics.

      Featured Work:

      • Policy and Planning as Public Choice: Mass Transit in the United States, with Fred W. Williams, Ashgate Press, 1999
      • Testimony Before the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructur, Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, Implementation of New Starts and Small Starts Program, May 10, 2007
      • Public-Private Deals: Need Firm Rules, with Everett M. Ehrlich, Engineering News Record, April 7/14, 2008

      Photo of Douglas Gary Lichtman

      Douglas Gary Lichtman

      Professor of Law, University of Chicago

      An Editor of the Journal of Law & Economics, Doug's research considers how technology will challenge, reinforce, and redefine traditional legal rules. Specific areas of expertise include patent, copyright, and trademark law; telecommunications regulation; information economics; and a variety of issues related to technology startups and the Internet.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Jens Ludwig

      Jens Ludwig

      Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University; Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

      Jens has published articles on poverty, education, and crime in leading scientific journals. He has been awarded the Vernon Prize for best article by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and APPAM's David Kershaw Prize for distinguished contributions to public policy by the age of 40.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Gilbert E. Metcalf

      Gilbert E. Metcalf

      Professor of Economics, Tufts University

      Gilbert E. Metcalf is a Professor of Economics at Tufts University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His current research focuses on energy taxation, climate change, and carbon pricing, most especially carbon taxation.

      Featured Work:

      • Federal Tax Policy Towards Energy, Tax Policy and the Economy, 21(2007): 145-184.
      • Assessment of US Cap-and-Trade Proposals, June 2007, NBER Working Paper 13176 (with Sergey Paltsev, John Reilly, Henry Jacoby, Angelo Gurgel, Andrei Sokolov, and Jennifer Holak).
      • Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation: Pigou, Taxation, and Pollution, Journal of Public Economics, 87(2002): 313-322.

      Photo of Richard Newell

      Richard Newell

      Gendell Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics Environmental Sciences & Policy, Duke University

      Newell's experience lies in the economics of energy and environmental markets, policies, and technologies; climate change; energy efficiency; and market-based environmental policy.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Joseph P. Newhouse

      Joseph P. Newhouse

      Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and John F. Kennedy School of Government

      Joe is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. An elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has served as the vice-chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and founding editor of the Journal of Health Economics.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Edgar O. Olsen

      Edgar O. Olsen

      Professor of Economics, University of Virginia

      Edgar O. Olsen is a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. His research on low-income housing policy has been published in leading professional journals and edited volumes, he has served as a consultant on housing policy issues to federal and state agencies, and he has testified on these matters before congressional committees.

      Featured Work:

      • Achieving Fundamental Housing Policy Reform, in Promoting the General Welfare: American Democracy and the Political Economy of Government Performance, edited by Alan Gerber and Eric Patashnik (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2006).
      • Low-Income Housing Policy, in New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume (London: Macmillan, 2008).

      Photo of John M. Peha

      John M. Peha

      Professor of Electrical Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

      Jon Peha is Associate Director of the Center for Wireless & Broadband Networking at Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor of Engineering & Public Policy. His research spans technical and policy issues of information technology, such as spectrum, broadband Internet, communications for emergency responders, universal service, e-commerce, privacy and security.

      Featured Work:


      Photo of Fred Pollock

      Frederick Pollock

      Vice President of Infrastructure, Morgan Stanley

      Fred Pollock is a Vice President and investment professional within Morgan Stanley. Fred joined Morgan Stanley in 2006. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Fred was an investment professional within Deutsche Bank's. Fred also previously was an associate at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell a staff officer at the construction and engineering firm, Bechtel SAIC, and a founder of a boutique asset management business that invests in residential real estate.


        Dorothy Robyn

        Dorothy Robyn

        Principal, The Brattle Group

        Dorothy Robyn is a public policy expert who served on President Clinton's economic team. Her research and consulting work have focused on the use of market mechanisms in aviation, telecommunications and other network industries.

        Featured Work:

        • Toward an Evolutionary Regime for Spectrum Governance: Licensing or Unrestricted Entry?, with William J. Baumol, Brookings Institution, 2006
        • Braking the Special Interests: Trucking Deregulation and the Politics of Policy Reform, University of Chicago Press, 1987
        • The Sky Must be No Limit to Global Competition, with Alfred E. Kahn, The Financial Times, February 15, 2006

        Howard Rosen

        Executive Director, Trade Adjustment Assistance Coalition and Visiting Fellow, Institute for International Economics

        Having previously served as Minority Staff Director of the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress, Howard has written extensively on issues relating to international trade, macroeconomic policies and labor market adjustment.

        Featured work:

        • Restructuring Unemployment Insurance for the Twenty-First Century Workforce, Lori G. Kletzer and Howard F. Rosen, Discussion Paper 2006-06, The Hamilton Project (2006)
        • Easing the Adjustment Burden on US Workers, Lori Kletzer and Howard Rosen, in C. Fred Bergsten, ed. The United States and the World Economy: Foreign Economic Policy for the Next Decade, Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics (2005)
        • Labor Market Adjustment to the Multi-Fiber Arrangement Removal, paper prepared for the World Bank, (June 2005)

        Photo of Isabel V. Sawhill

        Isabel V. Sawhill

        Cabot Family Chair & Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

        Belle's areas of expertise are children, education, the federal budget, poverty and inequality, social welfare policy, and teen pregnancy, on which she is the author and editor of numerous books and articles. She is the co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.

        Featured Work:


        John Karl Scholz

        Visiting Fellow, Economic Studies

        A professor of economics and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department, Scholz’s writing focuses on wealth accumulation, the earned income tax credit and low-wage labor markets, and intergenerational transfers.


        Photo of Judith Scott-Clayton

        Judith Scott-Clayton

        Doctoral candidate, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

        Judy's primary research fields are labor economics and public finance. Her current research focuses on the economics of higher education, and its role in addressing or exacerbating inequalities in educational attainment and labor market outcomes.

        Featured Work:


        Photo of Eldar Shafir

        Eldar Shafir

        Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

        Eldar Shafir is Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His interests are in descriptive studies of decision-making and their implications for economics and rationality.

        Featured Work:

        • Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision-Making among the Poor, with M. Bertrand and S. Mullainathan. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 25, 1, 8-23..
        • A Behavioral Perspective on Consumer Protection, in Roundtable on Demand-Side Economics for Consumer Policy: A Summary Report (DSTI/CP(2006)3/ FINAL). Committee on Consumer Policy; OECD, Paris, France (pp. 42-53)..

        Kent Smetters

        Kent Smetters

        Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania

        Kent Smetters is an associate professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 1995 from Harvard University.


        Douglas O. Staiger

        Douglas O. Staiger

        Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College

        A Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Doug's work focuses on school accountability, the quality of medical care, and the labor market for nurses.

        Featured Work:


        Robert N. Stavins

        Robert N. Stavins

        Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School

        Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; a University Fellow of Resources for the Future, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Stavins' research has examined diverse areas of environmental economics and policy.

        Featured Work:

        • Architectures for Agreement: Addressing Global Climate Change in the Post-Kyoto World, (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
        • Economics of the Environment, (W. W. Norton, 2005)
        • Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms, (Resources for the Future, 2005)

        David Torregrosa

        David Torregrosa

        Principal Analyst, Congressional Budget Office

        David Torregrosa is an analyst in the Macroeconomic Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office. His work focuses on proposals for federal disaster and terrorism insurance, risks that the government-sponsored enterprises pose to taxpayers, as well as federal financial and budgetary accounting issues.

          Featured Work:


          Lina Walker

          Lina Walker

          Research Director, The Retirement Security Project

          Lina Walker is the Research Director for the Retirement Security Project. Her research focuses on the saving decisions of the near elderly, including whether individuals save for long-term care expenses, the challenges faced by disadvantaged groups and the extent to which behavioral biases impede demand for annuities.

            Featured Work:


            Hugh R. Waters

            Hugh R. Waters

            Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

            Dr. Hugh Waters is a Health Economist and Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research interests are: (1) health insurance reforms; (2) evaluation of the effects of health financing mechanisms on access, equity, and quality; and (3) economic evaluation of health care interventions.

            Featured Work:

            • The Role of Private Providers in Treating Child Diarrhoea in Latin America Hugh Waters, Laurel Hatt, and Robert Black. Forthcoming in Health Economics (2007)
            • The Costs of Non-Insurance in Maryland Hugh Waters, Laura Steinhardt, Thomas Oliver, Alice Burton, and Susan Milner. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 139-151 (2007)
            • The Cost-Effectiveness of a Child Nutrition Education Program in Peru Hugh Waters, Mary Penny, Hilary Creed-Kanashiro, Rebecca C. Robert, Rocío Narro, Jeff Willis, Laura E. Caulfield, and Robert E. Black. Health Policy and Planning, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 257-264 (2006)
            • The Costs of Non-Insurance in Maryland. Hugh Waters, Laura Steinhardt, Thomas Oliver, Alice Burton, and Susan Milner. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 139-151 (2007)
            Photo of Philip J. Weiser

            Philip J. Weiser

            Professor of Law and Telecommunications, University of Colorado

            Phil Weiser is a professor of law and telecommunications and the Founder and Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado. He teaches and writes in the area of technology law and is the author of numerous articles and two books.

            Featured Work:


            Photo of Bruce Western

            Bruce Western

            Professor of Sociology & Director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

            Western's work has focused on the role of incarceration in social and economic inequality in American society. He shows the link between incarceration and unemployment, which therefore leads to inequality.

            Featured Work:



            Contact the Hamilton Project

            Tel (202) 797-4360 | Fax (202) 797-2478 | info@hamiltonproject.org

            For press inquiries, please contact Karen Anderson at (202) 741-6559 or kanderson@brookings.edu.