Alice Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and an important player in the first Clinton and Obama administrations, will receive the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research’s (SIEPR) $100,000 prize this year for her efforts to help people through economic policy.
Rivlin is a veteran of economic policy, having served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 1996-99, as well as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. In 2010, President Obama appointed her to the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. She serves as vice chair of the Board of the D.C. Association of Public Chartered Schools and on the Board of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.
Rivlin is lauded for her use of economic policy to better the lives of everyday people — namely strengthening social security and defending tax reform to increase revenue. A founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, her work has incited debate as to how the government might enact social insurance most effectively. She also once danced in a Harlem Shake video to bring attention to the national debt.
“Her dedication to public service for more than 40 years is an excellent example of how economists can use their expertise to improve people’s lives,” said Mark Duggan, Trione Director of SIEPR and the Wayne and Jodi Cooperman Professor of Economics in a Stanford News article.
Rivlin has received a host of other awards, including a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1983, the Moynihan Prize in 2008 and the National Academy of Social Insurance’s Robert M. Ball Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Insurance in 2013. Her teaching positions have included appointments at Harvard, George Mason and the New School. She is currently a visiting professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
She attended Bryn Mawr College and Radcliffe College for her respective bachelor’s and doctorate degrees, both in economics.
The SIEPR Prize, chosen by a group of five leading economists, is given biennially to people who have contributed significantly to the field. George Schultz, an economist who served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations, first funded the SIEPR Prize. The Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Schultz selects recipients alongside Duggan and other noted economists, such as Jim Poterba, John Shoven and Kenneth Arrow. Previous winners include Stanley Fischer, formerly of the Bank of Israel and vice chairman of the Federal Reserve; Harvard professor Martin Feldstein; and Paul Volcker, former chair of the Federal Reserve.
Rivlin will receive the award on April 14 in a ceremony at Stanford.
“SIEPR has made outstanding contributions to economic policy research over many years,” Rivlin said. “I am honored and delighted to receive the SIEPR prize.”
Contact Fiona Kelliher at fionak ‘at’ stanford.edu.