I came to Wellesley in 2012 from the economic policy world in Washington, D.C.  Most of my time in DC was with the Federal Reserve Board, though I also worked at the U.S Treasury and the Brookings Institution.  At the Fed, I was part of the senior management team providing analytic support to the Chair, other members of the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Open Market Committee.  I worked on a range of macroeconomic issues, including helping to guide the Fed’s forecast and analysis of the U.S. economy.

At Wellesley, I teach Introductory and Intermediate Macroeconomics, as well as an upper-level seminar on U.S. macro policy.   In these courses, I strive to create excitement about macroeconomics and to build students’ understanding of key analytic tools.  I also draw upon my policy experience to highlight the complexity of macroeconomic issues and of the choices facing policy makers.

My research interests and publications are in macroeconomics, economic growth, technology, and economic measurement.  I am a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Research, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (the agency producing U.S. GDP figures), and a member of the Executive Committee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth a group administered by the National Bureau of Economic Research that brings together academics and practitioners working on economic measurement. 

I joined the staff of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington in 1988 after earning a Ph.D. in Economics at Princeton University.  I left the Fed in 1993, when I joined the Brookings Institution as a Research Associate and while there authored a book—The Computer Revolution—that analyzed the relationship between information technology and economic growth.  In 1995, I was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomic Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department and then returned to the Federal Reserve in 1996 and remained there until coming to Wellesley in 2012.  I received a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan in 1983.