National Bureau of Economic Research

Overview

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit economic research organization headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, NBER is restricted by its founding charter to presenting data and research findings without issuing policy recommendations, and it is best known for its determinations of the start and end dates of U.S. recessions.

Key functions and role

NBER is a network of more than 1,900 affiliated academic economists who distribute roughly 1,200 working papers a year and convene more than 120 research meetings annually, including a three-week Summer Institute each July. Its Business Cycle Dating Committee, whose members are selected by NBER's president, retrospectively identifies the peaks and troughs of the U.S. business cycle using a broader set of indicators than gross domestic product alone. NBER also publishes the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest and other periodicals summarizing affiliated research for a policy and business audience.

History

Malcolm Rorty, an AT&T executive, and Nachum Stone, a labor economist, founded NBER in 1920 amid Progressive-era debates over income distribution, agreeing that policy discussions needed a more reliable factual foundation regardless of ideological disagreement. Columbia economist Wesley Clair Mitchell served as the organization's first director of research for 25 years, and NBER researcher Simon Kuznets developed the foundational work for U.S. national income accounting in the early 1930s, later earning the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. NBER research on monetary policy and business cycles by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in the 1950s and 1960s further shaped the field of macroeconomics.

Political positions

NBER is nonpartisan by charter and does not make policy recommendations as an institution, though individual affiliated researchers publish their own findings and interpretations. Many chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, across both Democratic and Republican administrations, have been NBER research associates.

Leadership

James M. Poterba, an economics professor at MIT, has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since 2008, succeeding Martin Feldstein. NBER is governed by a Board of Directors drawn from research universities, professional economics associations, and the business and labor communities.

Location and contact info

Address
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Phone
(617) 868-3900
Email
info@nber.org
Website
https://www.nber.org