6th Lau Chor Tak Distinguished Lecture on Global Economics and Finance Lecture on “America’s Economic Future and Role in the Global Economy”

Professor Michael J. Boskin

Professor Michael J. Boskin is the Tully M. Friedman Professor of Economics and Wohlford Family Senior Fellow, at Hoover Institution. He is also Research Associate, at National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as Chairman of President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) from 1989 to 1993, when he helped resolve the Third World Debt and Savings and Loan financial crises, expand regional and global trade and place the first effective controls on government spending while protecting the defense budget. His CEA was rated by the Council for Excellence in Government as one of the five most respected agencies in the federal government. Earlier, on Presidential Candidate Reagan’s Tax Policy Task Force, he helped develop the policies that substantially lowered marginal tax rates, indexed tax brackets for inflation, accelerated depreciation, and created IRAs and 401ks, the economic rationale for which was predicated on his research on the effects of taxes on saving. He later chaired the highly influential blue-ribbon Commission on the Consumer Price Index, whose report has transformed the way government statistical agencies around the world measure inflation, GDP and productivity.

Professor Boskin advises governments and businesses globally. He also services on several corporate and philanthropic boards. He is frequently sought as a public speaker on the economic outlook and evolving trends significant to business, national and international economic policy and as well as the intersection of economics and geopolitics. He writes regularly on economic policy in the Wall Street Journal and on global economics in a bimonthly column syndicated in 145 countries.

He received his B.A. with highest honors and the Chancellor’s award as outstanding undergraduate from the University of California, at Berkeley, where he also received his M.A. and his Ph.D., all in economics. In addition to Stanford, he has taught at Harvard and Yale. Author of more than one hundred fifty books and articles, he is internationally recognized for his research on various topics, including world economic growth, tax and budget theory and policy, Social Security, U.S. saving and consumption patterns, and the implications of changing technology and demography on capital, labor and product markets.

Professor Boskin has received numerous professional awards and citations, including Stanford’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the National Association of Business Economists’ Abramson Award for outstanding research and their Distinguished Fellow Award, the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic for his contributions to global economic understanding, and the Adam Smith Prize for outstanding contributions to economics.