Bill Gale Named Vice President and Director of Economic Studies at Brookings

William Gale, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution, has been named vice president and director of Economic Studies, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today.

Gale assumes leadership of the program from Isabel Sawhill, who will remain a senior fellow while continuing to serve as co-director of Brookings’s Center on Children and Families and co-director of the Project on Budgeting for National Priorities.

“Bill Gale is ideally qualified to build on the strength of a signature Brookings program,” Talbott said today. “Bill’s energy, high standards and superb reputation, along with his deep experience at Brookings and his knowledge of the policy world, made him a key partner to Belle Sawhill in her leadership of Economic Studies. Those same qualities will make him a valued addition to our management team.”

Gale has been a senior fellow at Brookings since 1992 and has conducted research on a variety of economic issues, including tax policy, fiscal policy, pensions, and saving behavior. He is the co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

Prior to joining Brookings in 1992, Gale was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush. He attended Duke University and the London School of Economics and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987.

He is the co-author or co-editor of several books, including Taxing the Future: Fiscal Policy in the Bush Administration (Brookings, forthcoming 2006); Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America (Century Foundation, 2006); The Evolving Pension System: Trends, Effects, and Proposals for Reform (Brookings, 2005); Private Pensions and Public Policy (Brookings, 2004); Rethinking Estate and Gift Taxation (Brookings, 2001), and Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform (Brookings, 1996).

Gale has served on advisory boards for the Government Accountability Office, the Internal Revenue Service, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the board of the Center on Federal Financial Institutions. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with his wife Julie, who is a psychologist; their children Danny, 16, and Becca, 13; and two golden retrievers.

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