Subject: an invitation from Jason Furman, Council of Economic Advisers, and David Wessel, Hutchins Center at Brookings
From: David Wessel <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Furman, Jason L." <[email-masked]>, Kerry Grannis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 20:40:22 +0000

John,

Jason Furman and I are convening a public, webcast event on Feb 11 here at Brookings to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.  Roger Porter will make some opening remarks, drawing from his previous writings and experience.

Then we'll turn to a couple of panels comprised of former CEA chairs. We want to have a lively discussion of the role of the CEA and of economists in policymaking.  Each panel will be built around a theme; we're still honing them, but one may focus on the CEA's influence (or lack thereof) on fiscal policy, another might look at the CEA role at times of economic crisis.   We'd like to include on each of the panels a non-economist who was played a key role in the White House - chief of staff, OMB director, etc.

We would be very pleased if you would be willing to join one of the panels in that role. No presentation or prepared remarks. Just conversation.  I'll moderate some of the panels. Alan Murray, now at Fortune, late of the WSJ, will moderate others.

So far, we have confirmation from Alan Krueger, Marty Feldstein, Martin Bailey, Glenn Hubbard, Austan Goolsbee, Ben Bernanke, Joe Stiglitz and Michael Boskin as well as several former CEA members (who weren't chairmen.)  Janet Yellen is a maybe.

We know you would add greatly to the quality of the conversation. Happy to talk further about what we have in mind.

Cheers and thanks,
David

David Wessel
Director, Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution
Contributing correspondent, The Wall Street Journal
Work 202 797 6068 / Cell 202 669 8398
www.brookings.edu/hutchinscenter
Twitter @davidmwessel