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Budget & Spending

Budget & Spending

Tax policy affects individual behavior, employment, and investment decisions. Studying the trade-offs between efficiency and equity yield solutions for policymakers and the public alike.

Featured Research
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Articles
Four Decades Of Senior Household Income Growth: New Evidence From The Survey Of Consumer Finances
February 15, 2023 By John F. Cogan , Daniel Heil

via Hoover Institution Press

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Congressional Testimony
Michael J. Boskin: Assessing The Federal Government’s COVID-19 Relief And Response Efforts And Its Impact
July 29, 2021 with Michael J. Boskin

via Hoover Daily Report

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Articles

Defense Budgeting: In Pursuit Of A Coherent Strategy

How to free national security goals from red tape, political wrangling, and inertia.

December 20, 2023

via Defining Ideas

Congressional Testimony
Michael J. Boskin: Assessing The Federal Government’s COVID-19 Relief And Response Efforts And Its Impact – Part II
September 30, 2021 with Michael J. Boskin

via Hoover Daily Report

Articles
The Great Recession And The Public Sector In Rural America
August 21, 2023 By Jonathan Rodden

via Journal of Economic Geography

Articles
The Choices for All Project: Healthcare Reforms for the Future
July 27, 2023 By Lanhee J. Chen , Tom Church , Daniel Heil

via Hoover Daily Report

Fellows in this Policy Area
John Taylor Hoover Headshot

John B. Taylor

George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics
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John Taylor Hoover Headshot

John B. Taylor

George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics

John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Working Group on Economic Policy, co-chairs the Hoover Technology, Economics and Governance Working Group, and is director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center. Taylor's fields of expertise are monetary policy, fiscal policy, and international economics. His book Getting Off Track was one of the first on the financial crisis; his latest book, First Principles, for which he received the 2012 Hayek Prize, develops an economic plan to restore America’s prosperity. His most recent book is Choose Economic Freedom: Enduring Policy Lessons from the 1970s and 1980s with George P. Shultz. Taylor served as senior economist on President Ford's and President Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers, as a member of President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and as a senior economic adviser to Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000, and to John McCain’s presidential campaign. He was a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 2001. From 2001 to 2005, Taylor served as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs where he was responsible for currency markets, international development, for oversight of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and for coordinating policy with the G-7 and G-20. Taylor received the Bradley Prize from the Bradley Foundation and the Adam Smith Award as well as the Adolph G. Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics. He was awarded the Alexander Hamilton Award for his overall leadership at the US Treasury, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award for designing and implementing the currency reforms in Iraq, and the Medal of the Republic of Uruguay for his work in resolving the 2002 financial crisis. At Stanford he was awarded the George P. Shultz Distinguished Public Service Award, as well as the Hoagland Prize and the Rhodes Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society; he formerly served as vice president of the American Economic Association. Taylor received the 2016 Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the 2015 Truman Medal for Economic Policy for extraordinary contribution to the formation and conduct of economic policy. Taylor formerly held positions as professor of economics at Princeton University and Columbia University. Taylor received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1973.

John Cogan Hoover Headshot

John F. Cogan

Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow
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John Cogan Hoover Headshot

John F. Cogan

Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow

John F. Cogan is the Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His research is focused on US budget and fiscal policy and federal entitlement programs. He has published widely in professional journals in both economics and political science. His latest book, The High Cost of Good Intentions (2017) is the recipient of the 2018 Hayek Prize. The book traces the history of US federal entitlement programs from the Revolutionary War to modern times. His previous books include Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System (2005), coauthored with Glenn Hubbard and Daniel P. Kessler, and The Budget Puzzle (1994), with Timothy J. Muris and Allen Schick. At Stanford, he taught classes in the Economics Department, the Graduate School of Business, and the Public Policy Program, where he was a faculty member from 1994 to 2019. He also served on faculty advisory boards for the Stanford in Washington Program and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is a recipient of the Stanford-in-Government's Distinguished Service Award and the Stanford Review’s Best Undergraduate Teaching Award. Cogan has devoted a considerable part of his career to public service. He served under President Ronald Reagan as assistant secretary for policy in the US Department of Labor from 1981 to 1983, and in the US Office of Management and Budget, as associate director from 1983 to 1985 and as deputy director from 1988 to 1989. He was appointed to numerous congressional, presidential, and California state advisory commissions. He was a member of President George W. Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, the US Bipartisan Commission on Health Care (the Pepper Commission), the Social Security Notch Commission, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance. He was also a member of the California State Commission on the 21st-Century Economy and the California Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission. Cogan served on the board of directors of Monaco Coach Corporation from 2006 to 2009; the board of directors of Gilead Sciences from 2006 to 2020 (lead independent director, 2013–2020); and on the board of trustees of the Charles Schwab Family of Funds from 2009 to 2021 (chairman, Governance Committee 2014–2020). Cogan received his AB in 1969 and his PhD in 1976 from the University of California–Los Angeles, both in economics. He received his MA in economics from California State University–Long Beach in 1970. He was an associate economist at the RAND Corporation from 1975 to 1980. In 1979, Cogan was appointed a national fellow at the Hoover Institution; in 1980 he was appointed a senior research fellow; and in 1984 he became a senior fellow.

Thomas MaCurdy Hoover Headshot

Thomas E. MaCurdy

Senior Fellow
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Thomas MaCurdy Hoover Headshot

Thomas E. MaCurdy

Senior Fellow

Thomas MaCurdy holds a joint appointment as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Professor of Economics at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1978. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.  MaCurdy’s expertise covers domestic policy related to government income-support and entitlement programs, with his research disclosing consequential empirical findings relevant to the design and impacts of public assistance policies. MaCurdy has published numerous articles and reports in professional journals and general-interest public policy venues, with studies analyzing policies in the areas of welfare, food stamps, earned income tax credit, minimum wages, unemployment compensation, child support, foster care, low-skilled training, federal and state taxes, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government aid for health care. These studies address a broad range issues, including determinants of participation rates, characteristics of beneficiaries, sources and distributions of program costs, and influences on work disincentives and incomes. In the healthcare area, MaCurdy has conducted a wide variety of projects supporting the activities and operations of the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO). He works extensively on the design of payment policies. He directs major projects with CMS on the setting of Medicare payment rates in the fee-for-service (FFS), Medicare Advantage (managed care) and Part D (drugs) programs. He also currently supervises several projects supporting CMS regulatory policy responsible for the establishment and maintenance of Healthcare Exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. He has further conducted a series of studies that explore options for implementing Value Base Purchasing (VBP) in Medicare (which introduces pay-for-performance features in reimbursements) and that examine the cost drivers underlying the growth in healthcare spending. MaCurdy has performed similar work in Medicaid for a variety of government agencies, studying both the impact of payment policy and the circumstances explaining cost growth. Among his public service activities, MaCurdy has served as a member of standing committees advising the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census, Congressional Budget Office, Institute for Research on Poverty, West Coast Poverty Center, California Health Benefits Review Program and many other state and local governmental agencies in California. He has further served in an editorial capacity for several professional journals (Econometrica, Labor Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Review of Economics and Statistics and California Policy Review).  MaCurdy received his BA in 1973 from the University of Washington and his PhD in 1978 from the University of Chicago, both in economics.

Michael Boskin Hoover Headshot

Michael J. Boskin

Wohlford Family Senior Fellow
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Michael Boskin Hoover Headshot

Michael J. Boskin

Wohlford Family Senior Fellow

Michael J. Boskin is the Wohlford Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Tully M. Friedman Professor of Economics at Stanford. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In addition, he advises governments and businesses globally. Boskin served as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) from 1989 to 1993, when he helped resolve the Third World Debt and Saving and Loan financial crises, and place the first effective controls on government spending while protecting the defense budget. His CEA was rated by the Council for Excellence in Government as one of the five most respected agencies in the federal government. He earlier served on presidential candidate Ronald Reagan’s Tax Policy Task Force, helping develop the policies that, during Reagan’s presidency,  substantially lowered marginal tax rates, indexed tax brackets for inflation, accelerated depreciation, and created IRAs and 401Ks, the economic rationale for which was predicated on his research on the effects of taxes on saving. He later chaired the highly influential blue-ribbon Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, whose report has transformed the way government statistical agencies around the world measure inflation, GDP, and productivity.  Boskin serves on several corporate and philanthropic boards of directors, including those of the Oracle Corporation, the Koret Foundation and Bloom Energy. In addition to Stanford and the University of California, Boskin has taught at Harvard and Yale. The author of more than one hundred fifty books and articles, he is internationally recognized for his research on world economic growth, tax and budget theory and policy, US saving and consumption patterns, and the implications of changing technology and demography on capital, labor, and product markets. His op-eds appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal and other leading newspapers. He also writes a bimonthly column on global economics and politics syndicated in 145 countries. Boskin has received numerous professional awards and citations, including Stanford’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988; the National Association of Business Economists’ Abramson Award for outstanding research and its Distinguished Fellow Award; the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic in 1991 for his contributions to global economic understanding; and the 1998 Adam Smith Prize for outstanding contributions to economics. Boskin received his BA with highest honors and the Chancellor’s Award as outstanding undergraduate from the University of California–Berkeley, where he also received his MA and PhD. His research papers and op-eds are available at the Hoover Institution Archives and on his personal website. His current research focuses on the defense budget, federalism, the political economy of redistribution, and more generally, public economics and macroeconomics.

Lee Ohanian Hoover Headshot

Lee Ohanian

Senior Fellow (adjunct)
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Lee Ohanian Hoover Headshot

Lee Ohanian

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Lee E. Ohanian is a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is associate director of the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he codirects the research initiative Macroeconomics across Time and Space. He is also a fellow in the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. His research focuses on economic crises, economic growth, and the impact of public policy on the economy. Ohanian is coeditor of Government Policies and Delayed Economic Recovery (Hoover Institution Press, 2012). He is an adviser to the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and St. Louis, has previously advised other Federal Reserve banks, foreign central banks, and the National Science Foundation, and has testified to national and state legislative committees on economic policy. He is on the editorial boards of Econometrica and Macroeconomic Dynamics. He is a frequent media commentator and writes for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Investor’s Business Daily. He has won numerous teaching awards at UCLA and the University of Rochester. He previously served on the faculties of the Universities of Minnesota and Pennsylvania and as vice president at Security Pacific Bank. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his PhD in economics from the University of Rochester.

Kenneth Judd Hoover Headshot

Kenneth L. Judd

Paul H. Bauer Senior Fellow
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Kenneth Judd Hoover Headshot

Kenneth L. Judd

Paul H. Bauer Senior Fellow

Kenneth L. Judd, the Paul H. Bauer Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is an expert in the economics of taxation, imperfect competition, and mathematical economics. His current research focuses on developing computational methods for economic modeling and applying them to tax policy, antitrust issues, macroeconomics, and policies related to climate change. He currently is a co–principal investigator at the Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy, the director of the Initiative for Computational Economics at the University of Chicago, and a member of the National Academies Board on Mathematical Sciences and Applications. He was coeditor of the RAND Journal of Economics (1988–95) and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2002–6). He was an associate editor of the Journal of Public Economics (1988–97). His work has also been published in the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Political Economy, RAND Journal, Journal of Finance, Journal of Economic Theory, Brookings Papers of Economic Activity, American Economic Review, and Econometrica. His book Numerical Methods in Economics was published by MIT Press in 1998. Judd has also contributed to collected volumes including the chapter "The Impact of Tax Reform in Modern Dynamic Economies" in Transition Costs of Fundamental Tax Reform (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2001). He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and served as a member of the Economics Panel of the National Science Foundation (1986–88). Before joining the Hoover Institution as a senior fellow in 1988, Judd was a visiting professor of business economics at the University of Chicago. From 1986 to 1987 he was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution. Judd was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Chicago, Department of Economics, 1980–81. From 1981 to 1983, he was an assistant professor of managerial economics at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and from 1984 to 1986 he was an associate professor at Kellogg. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin (1975) with undergraduate degrees in mathematics and computer sciences. Judd received an MA in mathematics in 1977, an MA in economics in 1980, and a PhD in economics in 1981, all from the University of Wisconsin.

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Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow
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Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow

Robert E. Hall holds a joint position endowed by Robert and Carole McNeil as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor in the economics department, Stanford University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society and the Society of Labor Economists. Hall is an applied economist with interests in technology, competition, employment issues, and economic policy. He is a frequent contributor to discussions of national economic policy, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, and competition policy. Hall's research focuses on levels of activity and stock market valuations in market economies and on the economics of high technology, particularly the Internet. His most recent book, Digital Dealing: How e-Markets Are Transforming the Economy, was published by W. W. Norton in 2001. Along with Hoover colleague Alvin Rabushka, Hall is an active proponent of the flat tax. Their article in the Wall Street Journal in December 1981 was the starting point of an upsurge of interest in the flat tax. This led to their book, The Flat Tax (Hoover Institution Press, 1985 and 1995). The pair was recognized in Money magazine's Money Hall of Fame for their contributions to financial innovation over the past twenty years. Hall is coauthor, with Marc Lieberman, of Economics: Principles and Applications, 3rd edition (South-Western, 2004). Hall also serves as director of the research program on economic fluctuations and growth of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an interuniversity research organization. He is chairman of the bureau's Committee on Business Cycle Dating, which maintains the semiofficial chronology of the U.S. business cycle. Hall has advised a number of government agencies on national economic policy, including the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve Board. He served on President-elect Ronald Reagan's Task Force on Inflation Policy and was a member of the National Presidential Advisory Committee on Productivity. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees concerning national economic policy. He presented the Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association in 2001. Before coming to Stanford, Hall was a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Born in Palo Alto, California, he attended school in Palo Alto and Los Angeles, received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hall is married to economist Susan Woodward and lives in Menlo Park, California.

Joshua D. Rauh

Joshua D. Rauh

Senior Fellow
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Joshua D. Rauh

Joshua D. Rauh

Senior Fellow

Joshua Rauh is the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He leads the Hoover Institution State and Local Government Initiative. He formerly served at the White House where he was principal chief economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (2019-20), and taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (2004–9) and the Kellogg School of Management (2009–12). At the Hoover Institution he has served as Director of Research (2018-19). Rauh studies government pension liabilities, corporate investment, business taxation, and investment management. His research on pension systems and public finance has received national media coverage in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Economist, and he has testified before Congress on these topics. His PragerU video “Public Pensions: An Economic Time Bomb” has been viewed over four million times on the PragerU website and over three million times on YouTube. He has published numerous journal articles and has received various awards recognizing his scholarship including the Brattle Prize and the Smith Breeden Prize of the American Finance Association. His scholarly papers have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Public Economics. Prior to his academic career, he was an associate economist at Goldman Sachs in London. Rauh received a BA from Yale University and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in economics.

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