Jeffrey Frankel is Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He directs the program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is also a member of the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which officially declares recessions. Appointed to the Council of Economic Advisers by President Clinton in 1996 and subsequently confirmed by the Senate, he served until 1999. His responsibilities as Member included international economics, macroeconomics, and the environment. Before moving East, he had been professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, having joined the faculty in 1979. Other past appointments include the Federal Reserve Board, Institute for International Economics, International Monetary Fund, and Yale. His research interests include international finance, currencies, monetary and fiscal policy, commodity prices, regional blocs, and global environmental issues. He graduated from Swarthmore College and received his PhD from MIT.

Recent Blog Posts by Jeffrey Frankel

• The Hour of the Technocrats December 5th, 2011
• The Easy Question in Financial Regulation November 22nd, 2011
• The Rise of the Renminbi as International Currency: Historical Precedents October 7th, 2011
• The 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis: Lessons for Country Vulnerability September 18th, 2011
• The Federal Government Races to the Cliff July 12th, 2011
• Can Food Prices Be Stabilized? June 27th, 2011
• The IMF Head Can’t Come from Emerging Markets Unless They Get Behind a Candidate May 31st, 2011
• How Europe Should Treat Sovereign Debt in the Future May 17th, 2011
• The ECB’s Three Mistakes in the Greek Debt Crisis May 13th, 2011
• The Only Way to Achieve True Fiscal Discipline: Learn Arithmetic February 28th, 2011
• Democrats Should Not Rise to the Bait of ‘Fiscal Conservatives’ February 24th, 2011
• The Tea Party Protestors Really Mean Whiskey, Not Tea February 22nd, 2011
• The FOMC Is Right to Stay the Course on QE2 January 28th, 2011
• The Pot Again Calls the Kettle Red: Republicans, Democrats, the Fed and QE2 November 17th, 2010
• NBER Eggheads Finally Proclaim End of Recession September 21st, 2010
• Food Security: Export Controls Are Not the Cure for Grain Price Volatility, but the Cause August 24th, 2010
• Some Big Ideas from Small Countries August 16th, 2010
• Reserves and Other Early Warning Indicators Predict Crises After All July 8th, 2010
• Time to Grab the Third Rail: Address the Fiscal Problem by Social Security Reform June 30th, 2010
• Gulfs in Our Energy Security, and the Louisiana Oil Blowout May 26th, 2010
• Red States, Blue States and the Distribution of Federal Spending April 1st, 2010
• Limit Tax Expenditures February 11th, 2010
• Achieving Long-Term Fiscal Discipline: A Lesson from Chile February 1st, 2010
• Is Investment Depressed by an “Anti-Business” Climate? December 21st, 2009
• Progress on Global Warming is not yet in Evidence in Copenhagen December 16th, 2009
• Ten Ways to Move the Budget Back Toward a Sustainable Path December 7th, 2009
• Counting “Jobs Saved” by Obama Fiscal Stimulus November 13th, 2009
• Why Did Economists Get It So Wrong? Krugman is Right September 9th, 2009
• Top UK Regulator Supports Transactions Tax to Shrink Financial Sector August 31st, 2009
• Good News, Finally, In the “Hours Worked” Statistic August 10th, 2009
• Americans Save Their Tax Cuts => Federal Spending Gives More Bang-for-Buck Stimulus August 4th, 2009
• An Answer for the Roadblock to an International Climate Change Agreement July 22nd, 2009
• A Return to Saving July 13th, 2009
• The Labor Market is Still Down — “Master Your Statistics, So They Don’t Master You” July 3rd, 2009
• How to Set Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets for all Countries June 29th, 2009
• The Labor Market Has NOT Yet Signaled a Turning Point June 9th, 2009
• Telling China to Stop Buying Dollars Now Would Be Even More Foolish Than Before June 3rd, 2009
• Slipping Out of the Political Handcuffs on Energy Taxes May 19th, 2009
• Recession is Now Tied for Longest Since the Great Depression April 30th, 2009
• Why the G-20 Summit in London April 2 Mattered April 7th, 2009
• Reactions to Geithner’s Public-Private Investment Program March 24th, 2009
• The RMB Has Now Moved Back to the Dollar March 12th, 2009
• America to China – “Stop Buying Our Dollars! And Another Thing: Please Buy Our Dollars.” March 10th, 2009
• Fiscal Responsibility: Obama Puts Away the Childish Things He Found in the White House February 25th, 2009
• A New Depression? The Lessons of the 1930s February 23rd, 2009
• TIPS tips February 22nd, 2009
• Is $800 Billion Too Big or Too Small? Yes. February 14th, 2009
• Needed in Treasury Plan: Price-discovery, write-down, & taxpayer protection February 11th, 2009
• Stop Distorting Spending Priorities into Tax Cuts February 6th, 2009
• US Tax Policy Will Be in Intensive Care This Year January 21st, 2009
• Advice for the New Administration: Spend Green Today Tax Green in the Future January 21st, 2009
• The Euro at Ten Why Do Effects on Trade Among Members Fall Short of Historical Estimates in Smaller Monetary Unions? December 29th, 2008
• The Euro at Ten: Time to Assess December 26th, 2008
• The Tenth-Ranked Quotation of 2008? December 18th, 2008
• Origins of the Economic Crisis – In One Chart! December 7th, 2008
• NBER Eggheads Finally Proclaim Recession December 1st, 2008
• The Best, the Brightest, and the Least Arrogant November 26th, 2008
• Tim Geithner As Treasury Secretary: A Man Who Doesn’t Lose his Cool November 24th, 2008
• My Bet: Larry Summers will be Chosen Treasury Secretary November 17th, 2008
• A Few Tax Policy Suggestions for Our New President November 5th, 2008
• The Unwinding of the Carry Trade Has Finally Hit Currencies October 31st, 2008
• NOW Are We In A Recession? October 30th, 2008
• Restructuring the International Financial System: A New Bretton Woods? October 25th, 2008
• How to Make TARP Politically Acceptable: Add a Tax on Securities Transactions October 2nd, 2008
• The Revised Troubled Asset Relief Plan Should Have Passed October 1st, 2008
• An Emerging Consensus Against the Paulson Plan: Government Should Force Bank Capital Up, Not Just Socialize the Bad Loans September 23rd, 2008
• Supply-Side Economics Contradictions Live on in Washington September 12th, 2008
• Anti-Shirking Import Penalties in US Climate Change Bills Could Backfire September 4th, 2008
• Commercial Banks, River Banks, and Moral Hazard August 18th, 2008
• Commercial Banks, River Banks, and Moral Hazard August 13th, 2008
• Commodity Prices, Again: Are Speculators to Blame? August 5th, 2008
• Good International Exposure for Obama and McCain July 21st, 2008
• “No Atheists in Foxholes.” No Libertarians in Financial Crises July 21st, 2008
• Offshoring is a More Dubious Policy, When the Question is Oil Drilling July 17th, 2008
• UAE and Other Gulf Countries Urged to Switch Currency Peg from the Dollar to a Basket That Includes Oil July 8th, 2008
• Did GDP Fall Within the 1st Quarter or Not? June 20th, 2008
• Are Either Low Interest Rates or Speculation Raising Holdings of Oil and Other Minerals? June 17th, 2008