Eric M. Engen is a resident scholar at AEI, where his research focuses on tax and budget policy, Social Security, household saving behavior, financial markets, and the macro economy. Mr. Engen is currently working on a book titled Social Security Reform: Sorting Out the Sense From the Nonsense. He is the author or coauthor of many academic articles that have been published in the American Economic Review, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Federal Reserve Bulletin, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Monetary Economics, National Tax Journal, and Tax Notes. Before joining AEI, Mr. Engen was a section chief and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. He also was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California at Los Angeles and a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Mr. Engen received the National Tax Association’s Doctoral Dissertation Award in Government Finance and Taxation in 1992.

Kevin A. Hassett is a resident scholar at AEI. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Columbia University School of Business. He was the chief economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 presidential campaign. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the previous Bush and Clinton administrations. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, Economic Journal, Journal of Public Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and many other professional journals. He has coedited two new books for AEI with R. Glenn Hubbard, Inequality and Tax Policy and Transitional Costs of Fundamental Tax Reform. His writings have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Business Week, National Review, Time, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, and many other publications. His first book, Dow 36,000, coauthored by James K. Glassman, was a national bestseller. His latest book, Bubbleology: The New Science of Stock Market Winners and Losers, was published by Crown Business in the summer of 2002.

Michael Prell is an independent economic consultant to financial firms. He has been an adviser to the Deutsche Bank economics group since 2001. He began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He moved to the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington in 1973. He has held various positions in the Board’s Division of Research and Statistics, serving as director from 1987 until his retirement in 2000. During his tenure as director, he also served as economist to the Federal Open Market Committee and bore the primary responsibility for the preparation and presentation of the staff’s domestic economic and financial forecasts.