Christina Romer: Difference between revisions
| Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
She is a former vice president of the [[American Economic Association]], a [[Guggenheim Fellowship|John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship]] recipient, a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], and a winner of the [[Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award]]. Professor Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the [[National Bureau of Economic Research]], and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html|title=The NBER’s Recession Dating Procedure}}</ref> |
She is a former vice president of the [[American Economic Association]], a [[Guggenheim Fellowship|John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship]] recipient, a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], and a winner of the [[Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award]]. Professor Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the [[National Bureau of Economic Research]], and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html|title=The NBER’s Recession Dating Procedure}}</ref> |
||
===2008 Harvard job offer=== |
|||
In May 2008, the economics department of Harvard University voted to offer her a tenure-track position, |
In May 2008, the economics department of Harvard University voted to offer her a tenure-track position, with an accompanying job offer arranged for her husband [[David Romer]] in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. However, Harvard President [[Drew Faust]] vetoed the appointment for Christina Romer, and her husband did not accept the solo job offer.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=523619|title=Faust Vetoes Tenure Decision|publisher=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|date=[[May 22]], 2008|last=Wang|first=Shan}}</ref> The decision not to offer a position to Christina Romer was widely criticized. [[David Warsh]], an economics journalist wrote, "By any measure, Mrs. Romer is one of the most distinguished women in economics."<ref>http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2008.05.20/318.html</ref> "Harvard would seem to have a great deal of egg on its face right now," commented ''[[Condé Nast Portfolio|Portfolio]]'''s [[Felix Salmon]].<ref>http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/05/22/the-romer-harvard-affair</ref> |
||
==Family== |
==Family== |
||
Revision as of 19:43, 26 November 2008
Christina Romer (born Christina Duckworth on December 25, 1958 in Alton, Illinois) is a professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. On November 24, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama designated Romer as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers upon the start of his Administration.[1][2]
Education and early career
She graduated from GlenOak High School in Canton, Ohio, in June 1977. She obtained her bachelor's degree in economics from The College of William & Mary in 1981, and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985. Upon completion of her doctorate, she started working as an assistant professor at Princeton University. In 1988 she moved to University of California, Berkeley and was promoted to full professor in 1993.
Research
Romer's early work focused on a comparison of macroeconomic volatility before and after World War II. Romer showed that much of what had appeared to be a decrease in volatility was due to better economic data collection, although recessions have become less frequent over time.[3]
She has also researched the causes of the Great Depression in the United States and how the US recovered from the depression. Her work showed that the Great Depression occured more severely in the US than in Europe, and had somewhat different causes than the Great Depression in Europe. Romer showed that fiscal policy played a relatively small role in the recovery from the depression in the US, because taxes were raised in the US almost as quickly as government spending increased during the New Deal. However, accidental monetary policy played a large role in the US recovery from depression. This monetary policy came first from the devaluation of the dollar in terms of gold in 1933-1934, and later from the flight of European capital to the relatively stable US as war in Europe became more likely.
She has done extensive work on fiscal and monetary policy from the Great Depression to the present, using notes from the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the materials prepared by Fed staff to study how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions. Her work suggests that some of the credit for the relatively stable economic growth in the 1950s should lie with good policy made by the Federal Reserve, [4] and that the members of the FOMC could at times have made better decisions by relying more closely on forecasts made by the Fed professional staff.[5]
Her recent work (with David Romer) has focused on the impact of tax policy on government and general economic growth. This work looks at the historical record of US tax changes from 1945-2007, excluding "endogenous" tax changes made to fight recessions or offset the cost of new government spending. It finds that such "exogenous" tax increases, made for example to reduce inherited budget deficits, reduce economic growth (though by smaller amounts after 1980 than before).[6] Romer and Romer also find "no support for the hypothesis that tax cuts restrain government spending; indeed ... tax cuts may increase spending. The results also indicate that the main effect of tax cuts on the government budget is to induce subsequent legislated tax increases." [7]
Career
She is a former vice president of the American Economic Association, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship recipient, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a winner of the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award. Professor Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.[8]
2008 Harvard job offer
In May 2008, the economics department of Harvard University voted to offer her a tenure-track position, with an accompanying job offer arranged for her husband David Romer in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. However, Harvard President Drew Faust vetoed the appointment for Christina Romer, and her husband did not accept the solo job offer.[9] The decision not to offer a position to Christina Romer was widely criticized. David Warsh, an economics journalist wrote, "By any measure, Mrs. Romer is one of the most distinguished women in economics."[10] "Harvard would seem to have a great deal of egg on its face right now," commented Portfolio's Felix Salmon.[11]
Family
She is married to David Romer, who was her classmate at MIT and is her colleague in the Economics Department at University of California, Berkeley. They have adjoining offices in the department[12], and collaborate on much of their research.[13] The couple have three children together.
References
- ^ "Obama taps Berkeley professor as senior economist". Reuters. November 24, 2008.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Obama to Tap Berkeley Prof to Chair Council of Economic Advisers". ABC News. November 24, 2008.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/cromer/JEP_Spring99.pdf
- ^ http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/aer_v92.pdf
- ^ http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/aer_98_2.pdf
- ^ http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/cromer/draft1108.pdf
- ^ http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/cromer/draft708.pdf
- ^ "The NBER's Recession Dating Procedure".
- ^ Wang, Shan (May 22, 2008). "Faust Vetoes Tenure Decision". The Harvard Crimson.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2008.05.20/318.html
- ^ http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/05/22/the-romer-harvard-affair
- ^ http://www.dailycal.org/article/7706/faculty_couples_keep_love_alive_at_work
- ^ "Berkeley Couple Tackle Top Fiscal Issues of the Day".
External links
 | This biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |