Before I was assigned this Alias I had no idea who Christina D. Romer was despite her former presence in the Obama administration. However, she is definitely highly relevant as her policies in the Obama administration are likely continually influential today. Her research on fiscal policy may be relevant to the class.
Christina D. Romer is an American Economist and was born on December 25, 1958 in Alton, Illinois. She obtained her bachelors degree from the College of William and Mary and later her Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also met her husband David Romer. Together the couple collaborated on many research projects. However, her early work consisted of research on the sources of the Great Depression and the U.S. recovery efforts from this economic disaster. Her research provided an understanding that the U.S. was more devastated economically than other countries in Europe during the same time period. Furthermore, Christina Romer's early research also focused economic volatility and her collaborative work with David Romer on economic growth and tax policies. In 1988 Christina Romer joined the faculty at University of California at Berkeley. She acquired numerous awards and distinctions and was the co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She also obtained a distinguished teaching award directly from the university. Furthermore, the department of economics elaborates more on her awards and fellowships directly stating the following:
She has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. She has served as vice president and a member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association. (https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/faculty/847)
Ultimately, her research and collaborative work made her highly significant to the Obama Administration as she had great exposure to the relevant topics and overall economic situation that the Obama Administration was grappling with. From January 29, 2009 to September 3, 2010 Christina Romer was a chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for the Obama Administration. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/about/former-chairs) She was responsible in calculating that a 1.8 trillion dollar stimulus was needed for economic recovery from the recent economic crisis; however, the actual stimulus package was reduced by over a billion due to the influences of others as shown here: (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/100961/memo-Larry-Summers-Obama)
I like that you took the assignment seriously and found several very interesting references. I believe there have been three chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, with Austan Goolsbee following Romer, and Alan Krueger following Goolsbee. Given how rough the politics is in Washington now, this job has become increasingly difficult. The turnover in the position says something about that. But it is also true that when Romer had the job, the Obama Administration was a little slow to realize how bad the recession would prove to be.
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