Martin Feldstein Biography Quotes 29 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Martin Stuart Feldstein was born in 1939 and became one of the most influential American economists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard College, where he distinguished himself in economics before pursuing graduate work at the University of Oxford. At Oxford he earned a doctorate in economics, sharpening an analytical approach that would later shape debates on taxation, savings, social insurance, and macroeconomic policy.

Harvard Economist
Feldstein joined the Harvard faculty in the late 1960s and spent virtually his entire academic career there, eventually holding the George F. Baker Professorship of Economics. In Cambridge he built a renowned research and teaching program that bridged rigorous theory and policy relevance. He taught generations of students who would become economists and policymakers, working alongside colleagues such as Lawrence Summers and N. Gregory Mankiw, and he played a central role in making Harvard a global center for empirical public economics.

National Bureau of Economic Research
In 1978 Feldstein became president of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a position he held for three decades. Under his leadership the NBER expanded dramatically, creating research programs that linked micro data to macro questions and setting standards for empirical credibility in economics. Working with scholars including Robert Hall, Christina Romer, James Poterba, and Ben Bernanke, Feldstein helped the NBER become the primary network for US economic research and the home of the Business Cycle Dating Committee that establishes the official chronology of recessions and expansions. After stepping down as president, he remained closely involved with the institution he had revitalized, while Poterba succeeded him at the helm.

Public Service and Policy Debates
From 1982 to 1984 Feldstein served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan. In Washington he was a prominent voice for market-oriented reforms and carefully designed tax policy. His tenure was marked by candid warnings about the long-term costs of persistent federal budget deficits, which put him at odds at times with other senior officials, including Budget Director David Stockman. Feldstein argued that deficits could raise interest rates and crowd out private investment, and he urged policymakers to balance growth-oriented tax policy with fiscal discipline. After returning to Harvard, he remained an influential participant in policy debates, writing for general audiences and advising leaders across the political spectrum.

Research Contributions
Feldstein's scholarship reshaped several fields. He pioneered empirical analyses of social insurance, famously arguing that Social Security could reduce private saving and alter retirement behavior, thereby affecting national capital formation. In health economics he assessed how insurance and tax subsidies influence medical spending. In public finance he quantified the deadweight losses from taxation and emphasized the importance of behavioral responses to tax rates, influencing the study of optimal tax design. With Charles Horioka, he coauthored the seminal paper that identified the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle, documenting a surprisingly strong correlation between national saving and investment even in an increasingly open world economy. The finding challenged simple views of capital mobility and sparked decades of research in international macroeconomics.

Mentorship, Colleagues, and Influence
Within Harvard and the NBER, Feldstein mentored young scholars and cultivated a collaborative culture that valued careful identification, data, and policy relevance. He built bridges among economists working in microeconomics, macroeconomics, public finance, and international economics, and he supported initiatives that enabled researchers to access administrative records and large datasets. His colleagues, among them Robert Hall, Christina Romer, James Poterba, and Ben Bernanke, worked with him in shaping the profession's standards and institutions, while a wide circle of students and coauthors carried his influence into academia, central banking, and government.

Public Voice and Honors
Beyond academia, Feldstein communicated complex ideas to broad audiences. He wrote frequent columns and essays for outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs, explaining the economics of deficits, tax reform, financial crises, and the risks and promises of global integration. He drew early attention to the structural vulnerabilities of the euro area and warned about the challenges of monetary union without full fiscal integration. His contributions were recognized with some of the profession's highest accolades, including the John Bates Clark Medal. He later served as president of the American Economic Association and was elected to leading scholarly academies in the United States.

Personal Life and Legacy
Feldstein married Kathleen Feldstein, an economist and writer, and their partnership extended from personal life to shared interests in policy and public discussion. Those who worked with him recall his combination of intellectual independence, empirical rigor, and institutional entrepreneurship. He demonstrated how academic research could illuminate real policy choices, yet he also emphasized the uncertainties and trade-offs that responsible policymakers must face. The institutions he strengthened, especially the NBER, and the many economists he trained and supported, remain central to economic research and policy analysis.

Final Years
Feldstein continued to teach, write, and advise long after leaving government service. During the financial turmoil of the late 2000s and the subsequent recovery, he offered guidance on financial stability, fiscal consolidation, and growth. He remained active in debates over entitlement reform and tax policy, arguing for sustainable public finances while safeguarding incentives for work and investment. Martin S. Feldstein died in 2019 at the age of 80. His legacy endures in the research agendas he helped define, the students and colleagues he inspired, and the institutions he built to connect economic science with the challenges of public policy.

Our collection contains 29 quotes who is written by Martin, under the main topics: Decision-Making - Investment - Money - Saving Money.