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Session 12 Tax Policy
What can tax policy contribute to restoring financial and economic stability?
The panel of tax experts representing different points-of-view will debate the issue.
Presentations
Speakers
William Strauss
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
William A. Strauss is a senior economist and economic advisor in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which he joined in 1982. His chief responsibilities include analyzing the current performance of both the Midwest economy and the manufacturing sector for use in monetary policy. He also produces the monthly Chicago Fed Midwest Manufacturing Index and organizes the Bank's annual Economic Outlook Symposium and annual Auto Outlook Symposium. He also conducts several economic workshops and industrial roundtables throughout the year.
Strauss has taught as an adjunct faculty member at both Loyola University Chicago and Webster University, Chicago. He currently teaches at the University of Chicago, Graham School of General Studies and at DePaul University, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.
His research paper topics include analysis of the manufacturing sector, the auto sector, the Midwest regional economy, the trade-weighted dollar, business cycles and Federal Reserve payments operations.
Strauss has been interviewed on numerous television and radio shows and quoted in the major business magazines and newspapers. He is a past president of the Chicago Association of Business Economists and currently serves as a board member for the National Association for Business Economics and as a member of the Advisory Council for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Economic Education.
Strauss earned a B.A. in economics and geography from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.A. in economics from Northwestern University.
William Gale
Brookings Institution
William Gale is vice president and director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy. He conducts research on a variety of economic issues, focusing particularly on tax policy, fiscal policy, pensions and saving behavior.He is co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. He is also director of the Retirement Security Project, an initiative supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and Brookings
Prior to joining Brookings in 1992, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.
He is the co-author or co-editor of several books, including Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America (Century Foundation, 2006); The Evolving Pension System: Trends, Effects, and Proposals for Reform (Brookings, 2005); Private Pensions and Public Policy (Brookings, 2004); Rethinking Estate and Gift Taxation (Brookings, 2001), and Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform (Brookings, 1996).
He has also written numerous scholarly research articles, including publications in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics, and has served as editor and editorial board member of several academic journals. He has also written extensively in policy-related publications and newspapers.
Gale has served on advisory boards for the Government Accountability Office, the Internal Revenue Service, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Board of the Center on Federal Financial Institutions.
Gale attended Duke University and the London School of Economics and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987. He lives in Fairfax, VA, with his wife Julie, who is a psychologist, two children Danny, 19, and Becca, 16, and two golden retrievers.
Alan Viard
American Enterprise Institute
Prior to joining AEI, Alan Viard was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and an assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University. He has also worked for the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress. Viard is also a frequent contributor to AEI's Tax Policy Outlook.
He has a Ph.D., M.A., economics, Harvard University and a B.A., economics, Yale University.