March 29, 2005

Speaker Biographies

Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation's Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including Dow 36,000 (Times Books), the 1999 best-selling book on stock valuation coauthored with James K. Glassman. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS's Morning Show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.

Allan H. Meltzer is a visiting scholar at AEI and the Allan H. Meltzer University Professor of Political Economy at Carnegie Mellon University. He served as the honorary adviser to the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies of the Bank of Japan from 1986 to 2002. Mr. Meltzer was a member of the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board during the Reagan administration. He has been an acting member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and a consultant to the U.S. Treasury and to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In 1999 and 2000, he served as the chairman of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission, which was appointed by Congress to review the role of these institutions. The author of several books and numerous papers on economic theory and policy, Mr. Meltzer is also a founder of the Shadow Open Market Committee. In 2002, he was elected a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association. He received the first annual Irving Kristol Award and delivered the Irving Kristol Lecture at AEI’s annual dinner in February 2003.

Rudolph G. Penner is a senior fellow and holds the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Public Policy at the Urban Institute. Previously, he was a managing director of the Barents Group, a KPMG Company. Mr. Penner was director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987. From 1977 to 1983, he was a resident scholar at AEI. Mr. Penner’s previous posts in government include assistant director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. Before 1975, he was a professor of economics at the University of Rochester. Mr. Penner is the author of numerous books, pamphlets and articles on tax and spending policy and has authored columns for various newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. His most recent book, coauthored with Isabel Sawhill and Timothy Taylor, is Updating America's Social Contract.

Alex J. Pollock joined the AEI as a resident fellow in July, 2004. From 1991 until he joined AEI, Mr. Pollock served as president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, a $90 billion housing GSE. At the Chicago FHLB, he was the architect of the innovative Mortgage Partnership Finance Program, which successfully created direct competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a national basis. Mr. Pollock is a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance and the Bankers Club of Chicago; a director of Allied Capital Corporation, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, and the Great Books Foundation; and the author of numerous articles on banking, financial systems, and management.

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