Lael Brainard, Former National Economic Council Deputy Director, Joins Brookings as Senior Fellow

Lael Brainard, former deputy director of the National Economic Council under President Clinton, has joined the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow in Economic Studies and Foreign Policy Studies, effective February 26. Brainard also served as deputy national economic adviser and as an aide to the president on international economics.

At Brookings, Brainard will focus on the challenges of globalization and development. Her research will examine developments in international financial markets, trade disputes, and trade agreements, including the Free Trade Area of the Americas, prospects for a World Trade Organization round of global trade liberalization, and regional agreements in Asia and Europe, among other topics.

“Lael brings strength to both the Economic Studies and Foreign Policy Studies programs and we are obviously delighted she’s here,” said Michael H. Armacost, president of the Brookings Institution. “She is not only a distinguished scholar, but she has practical experience at the highest levels of government.”

At the White House, Brainard was part of a select team advising the president on issues including China’s accession to the World Trade Organization and the 1997-98 international financial crisis. She served as the staff coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meetings in Vancouver and Manila, NAFTA implementation, and the G8 Jobs Conferences. In 1989, as a one-year appointee to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Brainard specialized in financial stabilization and market transition in Eastern Europe and Russia, Latin American debt policy, and U.S.-Japan relations.

Before joining the White House, Brainard was an associate professor of applied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School, where she also taught international trade and competition and international financial policy and markets.

Brainard, who has written extensively on international economics, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.