James Michael "Jim" Poterba, FBA is an American economist who is the Mitsui Professor of Economics at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, and current National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) president and chief executive officer.

Early life and education

Poterba was born in New York City. He attended

Pennsbury High School Pennsbury High School is a four-year public high school located in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Pennsbury School District. With 2,907 students enrolled for the 2021–2022 school year, Pennsbury High School is the ...

in Pennsylvania, where he won the 1976 championship of the

National Forensic League The National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization serving middle school and high school students in the United States. It was formed as the National Forensic League in 1925 by Bruno Er ...

in policy debate. He completed his A.B., summa cum laude, in 1980 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and completed his PhD in 1983 from

Nuffield College, Oxford Nuffield College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. N ...

. He was a

Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarshi ...

Academic career

Poterba started his career as an instructor in economics at the

. He became Professor of Economics at MIT in 1988. Today, he is the Mitsui Professor of Economics. He became the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research on 1 July 2008.

Research

Poterba is known for his research on how

taxation A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal person, legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to Pigouvian tax, regulate and reduce nega ...

affects the economic decisions of households and firms. His research has emphasized the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. He is also interested in the analysis of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans and in the role of annuities in financing retirement consumption. He has also been Director of the NBER Public Economics Research Program since 1991. He has served as a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform and edited the ''

Journal of Public Economics The ''Journal of Public Economics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering public economics, with particular emphasis on the application of modern economic theory and methods of quantitative analysis. It provides a forum for discussio ...

'', the leading international journal for research on taxation and government spending, between 1997 and 2006. He has edited several economics journals.

Honors

He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1996. In 1999 Poterba was awarded the

NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing is awarded by the United States National Academy of Sciences, U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) "to recognize authors whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a signific ...

from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. In July 2017, Poterba was elected a

Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

for the humanities and social sciences.

Personal life

Poterba is married to economist

Nancy Rose Nancy Rose is an American economist, currently the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2014 to 2017, Rose served as the deputy assistant attorney general for ec ...

References

External links

Personal websiteBiography of James M. PoterbaCV of James M. PoterbaProfile of James M. PoterbaNBER Working Papers by James M. Poterba
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Poterba, James M. 1958 births Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford Social scientists from New York City Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Living people MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty Marshall Scholars Fellows of the Econometric Society Corresponding fellows of the British Academy American chief executives National Bureau of Economic Research 21st-century American economists