John B. Taylor

George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics
Awards and Honors:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Econometric Society (elected fellow)
Economics Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award
(2015)
Biography: 

John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Working Group on Economic Policy and is director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center.

Taylor's fields of expertise are monetary policy, fiscal policy, and international economics. His book Getting Off Track was one of the first on the financial crisis; his latest book, First Principles, for which he received the 2012 Hayek Prize, develops an economic plan to restore America’s prosperity.

Taylor served as senior economist on President Ford's and President Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers, as a member of President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and as a senior economic adviser to Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000, and to John McCain’s presidential campaign. He was a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 2001. From 2001 to 2005, Taylor served as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs where he was responsible for currency markets, international development, for oversight of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and for coordinating policy with the G-7 and G-20.

Taylor received the Bradley Prize from the Bradley Foundation and the Adam Smith Award as well as the Adolph G. Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics. He was awarded the Alexander Hamilton Award for his overall leadership at the US Treasury, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award for designing and implementing the currency reforms in Iraq, and the Medal of the Republic of Uruguay for his work in resolving the 2002 financial crisis. At Stanford he was awarded the George P. Shultz Distinguished Public Service Award, as well as the Hoagland Prize and the Rhodes Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society; he formerly served as vice president of the American Economic Association.

Taylor formerly held positions as professor of economics at Princeton University and Columbia University. Taylor received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1973.

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Recent Commentary

Featured

The Great Book On Inequality And Economic Policy Thanks To Gary Becker

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Monday, November 30, 2015

The year 2015 was another big year for inequality books: Inequality: What Can be Done? by Anthony Atkinson, The Globalization of Inequality by François Bourguignon, Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell.

Featured

False Claims About Monetary Reforms

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Tuesday, November 24, 2015

In a recent blog post Adam Posen complains about “new legislative efforts” which he claims are “trying to force the Fed to follow strictly a narrow policy rule when setting monetary policy even in normal times—and report to Congress in a very literal-minded short-term way about any deviations from that rule.” 

Analysis and Commentary

Staggering Neo-Fisherian Ideas And Staggered Contracts

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Sunday, November 22, 2015

In a recent paper Do Higher Interest Rates Raise or Lower Inflation? and a follow-up post, John Cochrane delves into the “neo-Fisherian” idea that “maybe raising interest rates raises inflation” and lowering interest rates lowers inflation.

Federal Reserve
Featured

The Fed’s Letter To Congress And The FORM Debate

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Wednesday, November 18, 2015

In advance of a House vote on the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization (FORM) Act, Fed Chair Janet Yellen sent an open letter to Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi objecting to the legislation and generating a lot of media interest. 

Analysis and Commentary

It’s Still Not About Monetary Conspiracy Theories

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Sunday, October 25, 2015

I see that Paul Krugman is complaining again about an op-ed that Paul Ryan and I wrote in Decmber 2010.  I responded to Krugman back in February of this year when his complaints first appeared on his blog and in his New York Times column. But rather than deal with the economics of the response,...

Featured

Doing Away With Evils In The International Financial System, Again

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Seventy years ago President Harry Truman signed the Bretton Woods Agreements Act of 1945, officially creating the IMF and the World Bank. As Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau put it, the Bretton Woods agreements aimed to “do away with economic evils.”...

Featured

Colliding With Bill Dudley At A Crossroads

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Friday, October 16, 2015

New York Fed President Bill Dudley and I debated The Fed at a crossroads: Where to go next? at Brookings yesterday, moderated by David Wessel. Bill argued against a more rules-based road ahead for the Fed. I disagreed, but this kind of discussion from the Fed is helpful given recent legislation requiring it to report its rule or strategy.

Making Failure Feasible Proposes Bold New Monetary Reforms
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Making Failure Feasible

by Thomas Jackson, Kenneth E. Scott, John B. Taylorvia Books by Hoover Fellows
Thursday, October 15, 2015

In 2012, building off work first published in 2010, the Resolution Project proposed that a new Chapter 14 be added to the Bankruptcy Code, exclusively designed to deal with the reorganization or liquidation of the nation's large financial institutions.

In the News

Recreating The 1940s-Founded Institutions For Today’s Global Economy

by John B. Taylorvia Stanford
Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Remarks upon receiving the Truman Medal for Economic Policy.

Analysis and Commentary

Lessons Learned On The 30th Anniversary Of The Plaza Accord

by John B. Taylorvia Economics One
Thursday, September 24, 2015

The Plaza Accord, which took place 30 years ago this month, provides two important (and fascinating) economic lessons essential for anyone interested in reforming, or simply teaching, the international monetary system.

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