Media inquiries: Veronique Rodman
vrodman@aei.org (202.862.4870)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 10, 2007

AEI senior fellow Peter J. Wallison was appointed to the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Market Studies, AEI president Christopher DeMuth announced today. In noting Wallison's selection for the chair, DeMuth said, "Peter Wallison shares Arthur Burns's deep concern for the free market conditions that ultimately underlie U.S. economic performance. The work of both men has helped to remind us that excessive government regulation impedes competition, and thus reduces efficiency, innovation, and economic growth. Wallison will continue this work at AEI."
 
Peter J. Wallison joined AEI in January 1999 as a resident fellow and as co-director of AEI's program on financial market deregulation. Before joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Wallison has also held a number of government positions, including White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and 1987, and general counsel of the United States Treasury Department from June 1981 to January 1985. While working in the Reagan administration, he had a significant role in the development of the administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. Between 1972 and 1976, Wallison served first as special assistant to New York's Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.
 
Wallison is the coauthor of the recently released Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds (AEI Press, 2007). He is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, and author or coauthor of many books on GSEs, including Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks (AEI Press, 2004).
 
Arthur F. Burns was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1970 to 1978, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and director of research at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) from 1945 to 1953. The Arthur F. Burns Chair in Economic Policy Studies was established at AEI in 1984 to honor Burns's accomplishments and to promote intelligent, informed economic policy by providing a home in Washington for a scholar in the Arthur Burns tradition.

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