13 Facts About Douglas Elmendorf

Douglas William Elmendorf was born on April 16,1962 and is an American economist who is the dean and Don K Price Professor of Public Policy at the John F Kennedy School of Government.

Douglas Elmendorf previously served as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 to 2015.

Douglas Elmendorf was a Brookings Institution senior fellow from 2007 to 2009, and briefly in 2015 following his time at the CBO, and was a director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings.

Douglas Elmendorf spent his early career as an academic and educator.

In 1993, Douglas Elmendorf moved to public life, working for the Congressional Budget Office for the first time.

Douglas Elmendorf spent a year as an associate analyst before joining full-time in 1994 as a principal analyst where Elmendorf focused on health-care issues and the economic effects of budget deficits.

Douglas Elmendorf only stayed a year at the CBO as a principal analyst before heading to the Federal Reserve Board as an economist under Chair Alan Greenspan.

In 1998, his travels through the financial departments of the federal government continued, as Douglas Elmendorf moved to the Council of Economic Advisers, working as a senior economist under Director Janet Yellen.

When George W Bush took office, Elmendorf moved back to the Fed as a senior economist and in 2002, he got a promotion to chief of the macroeconomics analysis team, leading a group of 30 economists and researchers as they forecasted inflation rates and labor markets.

In June 2015, Harvard University President Drew Faust announced that Elmendorf would succeed David T Ellwood as Dean at Harvard Kennedy School.

Controversy arose in January 2023 when it was revealed in The Nation that Douglas Elmendorf was said to have rejected the appointment of Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, as a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School over the alleged anti-Israel bias of HRW under the latter's leadership.

Later in the month, Douglas Elmendorf reversed his position and Roth was planning to take up the fellowship in the next year.

Douglas Elmendorf is married to Karen Dynan, Professor of the Practice of Economics at Harvard University, and a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.