Christina Romer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Christina Romer
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| 25th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers | |
| In office January 29, 2009 – September 3, 2010 |
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| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Edward Lazear |
| Succeeded by | Austan Goolsbee |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Christina Duckworth
December 25, 1958 Alton, Illinois, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | David Romer |
| Education | College of William & Mary (BA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA, PhD) |
Christina Duckworth Romer (born December 25, 1958) is an American economist. She is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. She also served as the head of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Barack Obama. This council gives the President advice on economic matters. She left this important role on September 3, 2010.
Before President Obama took office, Christina Romer worked with another economist, Jared Bernstein. They helped create the government's plan to recover from the 2008 economic downturn. In early 2009, she explained the details of a plan to create jobs. This plan was then given to Congress.
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Early life and education
Christina Romer was born in Alton, Illinois. She finished high school in Canton, Ohio, in 1977. She studied economics at The College of William & Mary. She earned her bachelor's degree there in 1981. Later, she got her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985. After finishing her studies, she became a professor at Princeton University. In 1988, she moved to the University of California, Berkeley. She became a full professor there in 1993.
Career in economics
Christina Romer has studied how the economy changes over time. She looked at how stable the economy was before and after World War II. She found that some of the reported stability after the war was due to better ways of collecting economic data. However, she also showed that serious economic downturns, called recessions, have become less common.
She has also researched the Great Depression in the United States. This was a very difficult economic time in the 1930s. Her work showed that the Great Depression was worse in the U.S. than in Europe. She also found that the U.S. recovered partly because of changes in money policy. This included changing the value of the dollar compared to gold. Money coming into the U.S. from Europe also helped as war became likely there.
Romer has also studied how the Federal Reserve makes decisions about the economy. The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the U.S. She looked at notes from their meetings. Her research suggests that good decisions by the Federal Reserve helped the economy grow steadily in the 1950s. She believes the Federal Reserve could sometimes make better choices by listening more to its own expert staff.
Her recent work, with her husband David Romer, looks at how tax policies affect the government and the economy. They studied U.S. tax changes from 1945 to 2007. They found that tax increases made to reduce government debt can slow down economic growth. They also found that tax cuts might not reduce government spending. In fact, tax cuts might even lead to more spending later on.
Christina Romer has received many honors for her work. She was a vice president of the American Economic Association. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She won an award for her teaching at Berkeley. She also won the Visionary Award from the Council for Economic Education. She helps lead the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is also a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee. This committee decides when recessions begin and end.
In 2008, Romer was going to join the economics faculty at Harvard University. However, Harvard's president decided not to approve her appointment. This caused a lot of discussion among economists and in the news. The exact reasons for this decision are not clear. Some people thought it was because of different ideas about economics. Others thought it was because she trained at MIT, not Harvard. The Romers decided to stay at Berkeley.
Christina Romer is still a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2021, she became a Fellow of the Econometric Society. She also received the John R. Commons Award from Omicron Delta Epsilon, an economics honor society.
Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
In late 2008, the team for President-elect Barack Obama asked Romer to lead the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). They chose her because she knew a lot about the Great Depression. She worked with other economic advisors to suggest a plan to boost the economy. Romer thought a very large plan was needed to fix the economy. However, a smaller plan was passed by Congress. This plan was called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
She left the CEA in September 2010 to go back to teaching at Berkeley. She said she wanted her youngest child to start high school in Berkeley. In 2011, she wrote an article in The New York Times. She suggested that the head of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, should try to target "nominal GDP." This is a way to measure the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
Personal life
Christina Romer is married to David Romer. He was her classmate at MIT. He is also her colleague in the economics department at University of California, Berkeley. They have offices next to each other. They often work together on their research. They have three children. She is not related to the famous economist Paul Romer.
See also
In Spanish: Christina Romer para niños
