Non-profit

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

NBER Logo (link) by National Bureau of Economic Research is licensed CC BY 3.0 (link)
Website:

www.nber.org/

Location:

CAMBRIDGE, MA

Tax ID:

13-1641075

Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)

Budget (2021):

Revenue: $54,750,098
Expenses: $33,621,885
Assets: $177,982,489

Type:

Nonprofit

Formation:

1921

President & CEO:

James Poterba

President & CEO's Salary (2020):

$805,446 1

References

  1. National Bureau of Economic Research Inc, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Part VII, Section A, Line 1a.

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that investigates and analyzes economic issues. NBER makes its research findings available to the public, academics, and decision makers in both public and private sectors through its working papers and scholarly conferences. 1

The National Bureau of Economic Research was founded in 1920 in New York City and is now headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The NBER maintains a network of over 1,700 economists, many of whom hold appointments at North American colleges and universities. 2

Activities

The National Bureau of Economic Research organizes its researchers into twenty research programs, which include the Economics of Aging, the Development of the American Economy, International Finance and Macroeconomics, Labor Studies, and Political Economy. NBER convenes working groups that focus on issues like behavioral finance, the economics of crime, innovation policy, race and stratification in the economy, and risks of financial institutions. 3

NBER distributes new research by its affiliates through its working papers, currently distributing more than 1,200 each year. The working papers have not been peer-reviewed and are circulated for discussion and comment. Working papers available in May 2023 included “Child Health, Parental Well-Being, and the Social Safety Net,” “Inequality and the Zero Lower Bound,” “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Exchange Rate Depreciations,” and “Trends in the School Lunch Program: Changes in Selection, Nutrition & Health.”  4

NBER hosts over 120 meetings each year, providing researchers the opportunity to share and discuss their findings and create new projects. The NBER’s Summer Institute is held annually in July and convenes close to 50 smaller meetings. Conference topics in 2023 included international asset pricing, the risks of financial institutions, micro and macro perspectives of the aggregate labor market, industrial organization, and gender in the economy. 5

Funding

The National Bureau of Economic Research is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, businesses, and government agencies. The NBER identifies some of its donors, and tax filings confirm additional donations from the University of Chicago ($344,133 in 2013), 6 the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($100,000 in 2020), 7 and Columbia University ($62,091 in 2017). 8

Board of Directors

John Lipsky is the chair of the board of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Lipsky is co-chair of the Aspen Institute‘s Program on the World Economy, sits on the boards of the Center for Global Development, the American Council on Germany, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 9

Peter Blair Henry is the vice chair of the board of the NBER, the chair and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and dean emeritus of NYU’s Stern School of Business. 10

Robert Mednick is the treasurer of the board of the NBER and a former chair of the American Institute of CPAs. Mednick sits on three advisory groups within the Government Accountability Office, is a former senior adviser to the World Bank, and formerly sat on the boards of the American Judicature Society and the RAND Institute for Civil Justice.  11

James Poterba is the president and CEO of the NBER. Poterba is a former president of both the National Tax Association and the Eastern Economic Association, a former vice president of the American Economic Association, and a former trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 12

Kathleen Cooper is a former chair of the board of NBER (2011 to 2014), a senior fellow of the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University, and sits on the board of the Deutsche Bank USA. Cooper formerly worked as Undersecretary for Economic Affairs at the Department of Commerce and as chief economist at ExxonMobil. 13

Charles Dallara formerly worked as managing director and CEO of the Institute of International Finance and managing director at J.P. Morgan & Co. Dallara formerly held positions in the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for both International Affairs and Policy Development, senior advisor for policy to the Secretary of the Treasury, and U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund. 14

Jessica Einhorn is a former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Einhorn is a former vice president, treasurer, and managing director at the World Bank, a former trustee of both the German Marshall Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and formerly sat on the boards of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, the Center for Global Development, the Council on Foreign Relations, Time Warner, and BlackRock. 15

Mohamed El-Erian is the president of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge and a senior global fellow at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. El-Erian is the former chair of then-President Obama’s Global Development Council. 16

Diana Farrell formerly worked as CEO and founding president of the JPMorgan Chase Institute, global head of both the McKinsey Center for Government and the McKinsey Global Institute, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, and deputy assistant to the President on economic policy during the Obama Administration. 17

Helena Foulkes is the former CEO of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a former president of CVS Pharmacy, and former executive vice president of CVS Health. Foulkes sits on the board of Home Depot and on the board of overseers at Harvard University. 18

Robert Hamada is a former dean at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. 19

Peter Hancock is the former president and CEO of AIG, a former CFO and chief risk officer at JPMorgan, and a former vice chair of KeyBank. Hancock is a William Pitt Fellow of Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge.  20

Karen Horn is a former chair of the board of the NBER (2017 to 2020), a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and formerly sat on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation, Eli Lilly and Company, Norfolk Southern Corporation, T. Rowe Price Mutual Funds, and the Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Horn is the vice chair of the board of the U.S.-Russia Foundation for Economic Development and the Rule of Law and sits on the board of the National Association of Corporate Directors. 21

Lisa Jordan is the director of education and membership development at the United Steelworkers. Jordan is an advisor to the AFL-CIO‘s Commission on Race and formerly sat on the board of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. 22

Karin Kimbrough is the chief economist at LinkedIn and sits on the board of Fannie Mae and the academic advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Kimbrough formerly worked as an assistant treasurer at Google, head of macroeconomic policy at Bank of America, and as a vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 23

Karen Mills is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School. Mills formerly worked as an administrator of the Small Business Administration during the Obama administration and is a former member of the President’s National Economic Council. 24

Michael Moskow is a former chair of the board of the NBER (2002 to 2005) and the vice chair and distinguished fellow on the global economy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Moskow is a former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a former deputy U.S. trade representative during the George H.W. Bush Administration. 25

Alicia Munnell is the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Munnell formerly worked as senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of the Treasury. Munnell is a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is currently a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Pension Research Council at Wharton, and sits on the boards of the Century Foundation and the Pension Rights Center. 26

Robert T. Parry is the former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a former chair of the Economic Advisory Committee of the American Bankers Association, and a former president of the National Association for Business Economics. 27

Doug Peterson is the president and CEO of S&P Global and sits on the board of Business Roundtable. Peterson is a former COO at Citibank. 28

Andrew Racine is a professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is a former member of the national Committee on Child Health Financing at the American Academy of Pediatrics. 29

John Reed is a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Reed is a former chair of both Citibank and the New York Stock Exchange and is the chair emeritus of the MIT Corporation. Reed sits on the board at MIT and formerly sat on the boards of the Russell Sage Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Spencer Foundation, and MDRC. 30

Hal Varian is the chief economist at Google and an emeritus professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. 31

Mark Weinberger is a former assistant secretary of the Department of the Treasury, a former appointee to the Social Security Administration Advisory Board, and a member of both former President Barack Obama’s Infrastructure task force and former President Donald Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. 32

Martin Zimmerman is a former chair of the board of the NBER (2014 to 2017). Zimmerman formerly worked as a group vice president of corporate affairs at Ford Motor Company. Zimmerman sits on the boards of the CED, the National Commission on Energy Policy, and the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan.  33

Timothy Bresnahan is the director of the Center on Employment and Economic Growth at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Bresnahan formerly worked as a chief economist in the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. 34

Pierre-Andre Chiappori is a professor of economics at Columbia University and a fellow of the European Economic Association, the Econometric Society, the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and the Society of Labor Economists. 35

Maureen Cropper is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. Cropper is a former president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and a former chair of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of the Science Advisory Board at the Environmental Protection Agency. 36

Alan Deardorff is professor emeritus of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. 37

Graham Elliott is a professor of economics and a former chair of the economics department at the University of California, San Diego. 38

Benjamin Hermalin is a professor of finance at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. 39

Samuel Kortum is a professor of economics at Yale University. Kortum is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow at the Econometric Society, and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. 40

George Mailath is a professor of social sciences and economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the Game Theory Society, and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. 41

Joel Mokyr is a professor of arts and sciences and a professor of economics and history at Northwestern University. Mokyr is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History and an elected member of the American Economic Association.  42

Richard Schmalensee is a fellow at the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Industrial Organization Society. Schmalensee is a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and former chair of Resources for the Future. 43

Christopher Sims is an emeritus professor of economics at Princeton University. Sims is a past president of the American Economic Association and the Econometric Society, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. 44

Richard Steckel is an emeritus professor of economics at the Ohio State University. Steckel is a former president of both the Economic History Association and the Social Science History Association. 45

Ann Huff Stevens is dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas, Austin. Stevens is the founding director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of California, Davis. 46

Lars Stole is professor of economics at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Stole is a former editor of the RAND Journal of Economics, a former Alfred P. Sloan research fellow, a former presidential faculty fellow at the National Science Foundation, and an Olin Fellow in law and economics. 47

Ingo Walter is an emeritus professor of finance, corporate governance, and ethics at Stern School of Business at New York University. 48

David Yoffie is a professor of international business administration at the Harvard Business School. 49

Timothy Beatty is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis and sits on the executive board of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. 50

Constance Hunter is an executive vice president at AIG, sits on the board of the National Association for Business Economics, and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 51

Arthur Kennickell is a former official at the Federal Reserve Board. 52

Anne McCants is a professor of history and faculty fellow at MIT and the editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. McCants is a former president of the International Economic History Association, former vice president of the Social Science History Association, and a past vice president of the Economic History Association. 53

Maureen O’Hara is a professor of finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. O’Hara is a former president of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, and the Society for Financial Studies. 54

Dana Peterson is the chief economist at the Conference Board and a former North American and Global economist at Citigroup. 55

Peter Rousseau is a professor of history and chair of the department of economics at Vanderbilt University and the secretary-treasurer of the American Economic Association. 56

Gregor Smith is a professor of economics at Queen’s University, Canada. Smith is a former president of the Canadian Economics Association and a former co-editor of both the Journal of International Economics and the Canadian Journal of Economics. 57

William Spriggs is a professor in the department of economics at Howard University and the chief economist to the AFL-CIO. Spriggs is a former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the Department of Labor, former chair of the Healthcare Trust for UAW Retirees of the Ford Motor Company, and a former senior fellow and economist at the Economic Policy Institute. 58

References

  1. “About the NBER.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber.
  2. “About the NBER.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber.
  3. “Programs & Working Groups.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.nber.org/programs-projects/programs-working-groups.
  4. “Working Papers.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.nber.org/papers?page=1&perPage=50&sortBy=public_date.
  5. “Conferences.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.nber.org/conferences?eventType=upcoming&page=1&perPage=50.
  6. University of Chicago, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2013, Schedule I, Part II.
  7. Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2020, Part XV, Line 3.
  8. Columbia University, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2017, Schedule I, Part II.
  9. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  10. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
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  13. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  14.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  15.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  16. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  17. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  18. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  19. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  20. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  21. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  22. “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  23.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  24.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  25.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  26.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
  27.  “Leadership and Governance.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.nber.org/about-nber/leadership-governance.
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: June - May
  • Tax Exemption Received: March 1, 1921

  • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2021 Jun Form 990 $54,750,098 $33,621,885 $177,982,489 $14,960,241 N $30,313,737 $1,503,702 $2,785,223 $1,916,898
    2020 Jun Form 990 $42,730,306 $36,548,432 $137,370,468 $14,456,589 N $30,643,475 $1,512,080 $2,752,384 $1,957,266 PDF
    2019 Jun Form 990 $40,352,849 $37,868,038 $138,494,267 $12,648,564 Y $31,715,561 $1,488,564 $3,091,577 $1,893,316 PDF
    2018 Jun Form 990 $44,375,535 $40,635,874 $136,259,551 $13,304,067 Y $35,552,230 $1,479,688 $2,859,177 $1,834,591 PDF
    2017 Jun Form 990 $40,895,043 $39,456,834 $128,713,178 $12,556,020 N $34,695,975 $1,449,039 $2,535,707 $1,773,033
    2016 Jun Form 990 $33,263,297 $33,988,867 $118,832,501 $13,242,598 N $29,291,726 $1,487,568 $2,484,080 $1,935,476 PDF
    2015 Jun Form 990 $35,711,166 $32,979,628 $123,850,304 $14,027,420 N $27,935,201 $1,467,092 $2,539,522 $1,910,324 PDF
    2014 Jun Form 990 $39,720,762 $35,749,616 $130,700,412 $14,922,682 N $31,625,911 $1,482,876 $2,883,220 $1,402,773 PDF
    2013 Jun Form 990 $39,164,745 $36,411,282 $117,730,281 $16,006,697 N $32,703,996 $1,475,771 $2,806,692 $1,322,915 PDF
    2012 Jun Form 990 $40,002,023 $38,449,627 $111,574,549 $17,779,557 N $35,365,115 $1,578,694 $2,681,937 $1,302,677 PDF
    2011 Jun Form 990 $41,919,456 $36,409,290 $119,039,622 $19,235,061 N $33,341,182 $1,604,454 $2,600,658 $1,258,799 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

    1050 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
    CAMBRIDGE, MA 02138-5359