GRAMLICH, Edward M(artin) 1939–

PERSONAL: Born June 18, 1939, in Rochester, NY, son of Jacob Edward and Harriet (Williams) Gramlich; married Ruth Brown, August 29, 1964; children: Sarah, Robert. Education: Williams College, B.A., 1961; Yale University, M.A., 1962, Ph.D., 1965.

ADDRESSES: Office—Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 20th and Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, DC, 20551; 2101 Connecticut Ave. N.W., no. 53, Washington, DC 20008. E-mail—edward.gramlich@frb.gov.

CAREER: Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, member of research and statistics division, 1965–70, governor, 1997–; U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, Washington, DC, director of Policy Research Division, 1971–73, director, 1971–73; Brookings Institute, senior fellow, 1973–76; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, professor of economics and public policy, 1976–97, director of Institute of Public Policy Studies, 1973–83, 1991–95, chair of economics department, 1983–86, 1989–90, dean of School of Public Policy, 1995–97; Congressional Budget Office, deputy directory, 1986, acting director, 1987, member of Panel of Economics Advisors, 1988–92. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, visiting lecturer, 1970; George Washington University, adjunct professor, 1974–75; Cornell University, visiting professor, 1975–76; Stockholm University, visiting lecturer, 1979; Frank M. Engle Lecturer, 2001. Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, 1973–81; Economics Panel, National Science Foundation, 1973–75; White House Summit Conference, 1974; Truman Scholarship Selection Panel, 1982–85, 1994–97; Ford Foundation Advisory Committee on Social Welfare Policy, 1984–87; executive committee, International Seminar on Public Economics, 1986–97; board of directors, National Tax Association, 1988–91; chair, Ann Arbor Blue Ribbon Panel on City Finances, 1991–92; staff director, Major League Baseball Economic Study Committee, 1991–92; chair, Advisory Council on Social Security, 1994–97; chair, Airline Transportation Stabilization Board, 2001–; chair, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, 2002–. Member of editorial board for journals, including National Tax Journal, 1970–83; Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 1980–97; Evaluation Review, 1980–83; and Journal of Economic Literature, 1981–84.

MEMBER: Association for Public Policy and Management (member of policy council, 1979–84, vice president, 1979–80, program chairman, 1981), American Economic Association (vice president, 1992), National Academy of Sciences Education Research Foundation, National Academy of Social Insurance.

AWARDS, HONORS: Abramson Award, National Association of Business Economists, 1970, for the article "The Role of Money in Economic Activity: Complicated or Simple?"; Distinguished Faculty Award, Michigan Association of Governing Boards, 1994; honorary lifetime member, Society of Government Economists, 1994; Distinguished Public Service Award, University of Michigan, 1997.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Dwight M. Jaffee) Savings Deposits, Mortgages, and Housing in the FRB-MIT-Penn Econometric Model, D. C. Heath (Lexington, MA), 1972.

(With Barry M. Blechman and Robert W. Hartman) Setting National Priorities: The 1975 Budget, Brookings Institute (Washington, DC), 1974.

(With Patricia P. Koshel) Educational Performance Contracting: An Evaluation of an Experiment, Brookings Institute (Washington, DC), 1975.

(With Barry M. Blechman and Robert W. Hartman) Setting National Priorities: The 1976 Budget, Brookings Institute (Washington, DC), 1975.

Benefit-Cost Analysis of Government Programs, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1981, revised as A Guide to Benefit-Cost Analysis, 1990.

(Editor, with Bengt-Christer Ysander) Control of Local Government, IUI Conference Reports Series 1985, Industrial Institute for Economics and Social Research (Stockholm, Sweden), 1985.

(With Paul N. Courant) Federal Budget Deficits: America's Great Consumption Binge, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1986.

Financing Federal Systems: The Selected Essays of Edward M. Gramlich, Studies in Fiscal Federalism and State-Local Finance, Edward Elgar, 1997.

Is It Time to Reform Social Security?, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1998.

(With C. Eugene Steuerle, Hugh Hecho, and Demetra S. Nightengale) The Government We Deserve: Responsive Democracy and Changing Expectations, Urban Institute Press, 1998.

Contributor of chapters to books, including Budget Concepts for Economic Analysis, edited by Wilfred Lewis, Brookings Institute, 1968; Staff Papers of the President's Commission on Budget Concepts, Government Printing Office, 1968; Finanztheorie, edited by Horst Claus Rectenwald, Neue Wissenschaftliche Bibiliothek, 1969; (with David T. Hulett) Savings and Residential Financing, edited by Donald P. Jacobs, U.S. Savings and Loan League, 1970; Consumption Issues in the Seventies, National Planning Association, 1970; The Political Economy of Public Service Employment, edited by Harold Shepard and others, Heath Lexington, 1972; (with Larry L. Orr) Ethical and Legal Issues of Social Experimentation, edited by Alice M. Rivlin and P. Michael Timpane, Brookings Institute, 1976; Inflation and the Income Tax, edited by Henry J. Aaron, Brookings Institute, 1976; The Political Economy of Fiscal Federalism, edited by Wallace E. Oates, Heath Lexington, 1977; Conference Report on Evaluating the 1977 Economic Stimulus Package, Department of Labor, 1978; Poverty and Public Policy: An Evaluation of Social Science Research, edited by Vincent T. Covello, National Academy of Sciences, 1980; (with B. C. Ysander), Studies in Labor Market Behavior: Sweden and the United States, edited by Gunnar Eliasson, Bertil Holmlund, and Frank Stafford, Industriens Utredningsinstitut, 1982; Public Finance and Public Employment, edited by Robert H. Haveman, Wayne State University Press, 1982; (with Deborah S. Laren) Setting National Priorities: The 1983 Budget, edited by Joseph A. Pechman, Brookings Institute, 1982; (with Gary C. Woodward) Michigan's Fiscal and Economic Structure, edited by Harvey E. Brazer and Deborah S. Laren, Brookings Institute, 1984; (with Paul N. Courant and John P. Laitner) Retirement and Economic Behavior, edited by Henry J. Aaron and Gary Burtless, Brookings Institute, 1984; Federal Budget Policy in the 1980s, edited by John L. Palmer and Gregory B. Mills, Urban Institute Press, 1984; (with Deborah S. Laren) The Social Contract Revisited: Aims and Outcomes of President Reagan's Social Welfare Policy, edited by Lee C. Bawden, Urban Institute Press, 1984; The Australian Economy: A View from the North, edited by Richard E. Caves and Lawrence B. Krause, Brookings Institute, 1984; (with Paul N. Courant), Tax Policy: New Directions and Possibilities, edited by Walter W. Heller, Center for National Policy, 1984; Managing the Service Economy: Problems and Prospects, edited by Robert P. Inman, Cambridge University Press, 1985; American Domestic Priorities: An Economic Appraisal, edited by John M. Quigley and Daniel L. Rubinfeld, University of California Press, 1985; (with Paul Courant) The Economic Outlook for 1985, edited by Saul H. Hymans, University of Michigan Press, 1985; The Swedish Economy, edited by Barry P. Bosworth and Alice M. Rivlin, Brookings Institute, 1985; The Economic Outlook for 1989, edited by Saul H. Hymans, University of Michigan Press, 1989; The Changing Face of Fiscal Federalism, edited by Thomas R. Swartz and John E. Peck, M. E. Sharpe, 1990; (with Paul N. Courant) Do Taxes Matter? The Impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, edited by Joel Slemrod, MIT Press, 1990; Provincial Public Finances: Plaudits, Problems, and Prospects, edited by Melville McMillan, Canadian Tax Foundation, 1991; Is There a Shortfall in Public Capital Investment?, edited by Alicia H. Munnell, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 1991; An Economic Perspective on the Southwest: Defining the Decade, edited by Gerald P. O'Driscoll and Stephen P. A. Brown, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 1991; Fulfilling America's Promise: Social Policies for the 1990s, Cornell University Press, 1992; (with Deborah Laren and Naomi Sealand) Drugs, Crime, and Social Isolation: Barriers to Urban Opportunity, edited by Adele V. Harrell and George E. Peterson, Urban Institute Press, 1992; (with Richard Kasten and Frank Sammartino, Uneven Tides: Rising Inequality in America, edited by Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk, Russell Sage, 1993; Modern Political Economy: Old Topic, New Directions, edited by Jeffrey S. Banks and Eric A. Hanushek, Cambridge University Press, 1995; The Economic Outlook for 1996, edited by Saul H. Hymans, University of Michigan Press, 1996; Social Security Reform, edited by Steven A. Sass and Robert K. Triest, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 1997; Social Security in the 21st Century, edited by Eric R. Kingson and James H. Schulz, Oxford University Press, 1997; The Economics of Fiscal Federalism and Local Finance, edited by Wallace E. Oates, Edward Elgar Publishing, 1997; Postitioning Pensions for the 21st Century, edited by Michael S. Gordon, Olivia S. Mitchell and Marc M. Twinney, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997; and (with Colleen Heflin) Generating Jobs: How to Increase the Demand for Less-Skilled Workers, edited by Richard B. Freeman and Peter Gottschalk, Russell Sage, 1998.

Contributor of articles to books, including Proceedings of Business and Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association, 1967; Proceedings of the Conference on the Economic Outlook, University of Michigan Press, 1968; Monetary Economics: Readings on Current Issues, McGraw Hill, 1971; Computer Simulations of Human Behavior, Wiley, 1972; Benefit-Cost and Policy Analysis Annual, edited by Robert H. Haveman, Russell Sage, 1973; Methods and Techniques of Business Forecasting, edited by William F. Butler, Robert A. Kavesh, and Robert B. Platt, Prentice Hall, 1974; Monetary Thoery and Policy, edited by Thomas Havrilesky, AHM Publishing, 1976; Social Program Implementation, edited by Walter Williams and Richard Elmore, Academic Press, 1976; Public Expenditure and Policy Analysis, Rand McNally, 1977; The Economic Problem, edited by Robert L. Heilbroner, Prentice Hall, 1977; New York State's Economic Crisis: Jobs, Income, and Economic Growth, edited by Felician F. Foltman and Peter D. McClelland, Cornell University Press, 1977; Evaluation Studies Review Annual, edited by George Farkas and Ernst Stromsdorfer, Russell Sage, 1980; COUPE Papers on Public Economics, edited by Helen Ladd and Nicolaus Tideman, 1981; Problemi di Amministrazione Publica, 1983; Readings on Urban Economics, edited by Stephen L. Mehay and Geoffrey E. Nunn, Goodyear, 1983; Municipal Expenditures, Revenues and Services: Economic Models and Their Use by Planners, edited by W. Patrick Beaton, Rutgers University Press, 1983; Public Expenditures and Policy Analysis, Rand McNally, 1982; Rassegna delta Leteratura Sui Cicle Economi, edited by Guiseppe Eusepi, ISCO, 1990; Debt and Deficits, edited by Geoffrey Wood and Lakis Kaounides, Elgar Publishing, 1992; Durell Journal of Money and Banking, 1993; Midwest Approaches to School Reform, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1995; The Economic Outlook for 1995, edited by Saul H. Hymans, University of Michigan Press, 1995; Readings in Public Finance, edited by Matthew P. Drennan and Dick Netzer, Blackwell, 1996; Readings and Materials on Tax Policy, edited by Philip D. Oliver and Fred W. Peel, Jr., Foundation Press, 1996; Generations Apart, edited by Richard D. Thau and Jay S. Heflin, Prometheus Books, 1997; St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank Review, 1998; Tax Policy in the Real World, edited by Joel Slemrod, Cambridge University Press, 1998; and Redesigning Social Security, edited by Horst Siebert, Kiel Institute Press, 1998.

Also contributor of articles to periodicals, including Monetary Economics, Governing, Monetary Theory and Policy, Yale Economic Essays, Review of Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, Benefits Quarterly, International Economic Review, National Tax Journal, Federal Reserve Bulletin, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Journal of Human Resources, Business Economics, Policy Analysis, COUPE Papers on Public Economics, American Economist, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Aging and Social Policy, Economics of Education Review, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Economic Education, Durell Journal of Money and Banking, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Journal of Economic Literature, International Social Security Review, Benefits Quarterly, Eastern Economic Journal, and Brookings Papers Economic Activity.

SIDELIGHTS: Edward M. Gramlich's career has focused on several different aspects of economics. Early in his career, he was involved in endeavors similar to that explored in his graduate thesis, namely working with a macroeconomic model and later modeling the economics of state and local levels of government. Specifically he studied the use of block grants at the local and state level, and government, public employment, and savings trends. Later in his career Gramlich pursued studies of unemployment and poverty and how they impacted economics. He also became interested in program evaluation and used it in his studies of benefit-cost analysis programs that distributed goods. Gramlich studied the implications of tax cuts and looked at the effect of migration on economics. The various aspects of economics that Gramlich has pursued throughout his career helped shape his published works.

In his 1981 volume, Benefit-Cost Analysis of Government Programs, Gramlich lays out in textbook style the basics and intricacies of benefit-cost analysis. The book is the summation and result of the Gramlich's experience as a professor at the University of Michigan, and is offered in an academic tone with problems to solve, chapter summaries, and an index. Gramlich's goals in writing the text were to explain benefit-cost analysis in language that students who had not yet studied advanced economics could understand, and to look at real life applications of the analysis to governmental programs. Experts in the field of economics are divided on the usefulness of benefit-cost analysis (a method of evaluating government programs that ranks and compares the benefits and costs of these programs). Some maintain that this type of analysis is the only way to shape public policy which deals with economics. Others point to the impossibility of assigning values to some of these programs. In a review of Benefit-Cost Analysis for the Wall Street Review of Books, Charles J. Woelfe asserted that implementing this method is "more difficult than it sounds."

According to Gramlich, benefit-cost analysis originated among economics intellectuals as early as the 1800s. It was first applied to governmental programs in the early twentieth century and soon moved into the realm of the private sector. Benefit-Cost Analysis addresses issues related to benefit-cost analysis, including government's role in shaping the market economy, government spending, evaluation of programs, a summary of the literature on the subject of this type of analysis, how to value resources or benefits (including the "social value of investment" and how to factor that into benefit-cost analysis), how governmental programs affect various groups in society, and actual case studies of the analysis being applied to programs. Gramlich also describes evaluation methods of such programs including the use of "social experimentation," which models a government program on a smaller scale to assess impact on the recipients of the program. Gramlich addresses issues that need to be resolved before program evaluation can be undertaken. Woelfel called the book a "good introduction," but only for students who have already had a "rigorous course in introductory economics."

Gramlich coedited a 1985 compilation of nine reports from a economics conference titled Control of Local Government. The collection looks at the relationship between national and local governments in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States. Gramlich addresses issues inherent in these relationships such as excessive spending, the danger of too much control, and the role of a centralized national government in ensuring flexibility at local governmental levels.

Financing Federal Systems: The Selected Essays of Edward M. Gramlich, was published in 1997 and contains twenty-three of Gramlich's papers on such topics as the structure of fiscal federalism, state and local government behavior, grant policies, macroeconomic policies, state tax limitations, federal tax policy, sub-national fiscal policy, infrastructure investment, and public welfare policies. These papers have contributed greatly to public finance and macroeco-nomics since the 1970s. Gramlich, who served as chair of the Social Security Advisory Council, recounts and illustrates his views on the problems faced by Social Security and solutions to these problems in his 1998 volume, Is It Time to Reform Social Security?

Gramlich reflected at length on his field in a American Economist article, noting the changes in policy economics since the 1960s. "In the '60s there was a view … that policy should be far-sighted towards the future and generous towards those of low incomes…. Today, it is … harder to argue for farsighted, high saving policies; harder to argue for generosity towards low income people; harder to defend policy research. Certainly there are reasons that these arguments are harder to make—some of the predictions of beneficial effects of anti-poverty programs have not been borne out, and some of the presumed values of policy research have not materialized. At the same time, I personally feel that now we have replaced too much optimism with too much skepticism on the other side of these arguments…. We are sadder but wiser, and sadder but wiser we still push on."

Gramlich told CA: "My formal publications have slowed down since I took the position as governor of the Federal Reserve Board in 1997. There I have become involved in many activities, most notably as chair of the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, where I review loan guarantee applications, and the Board of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, which encouraged low-income housing. I describe these activities, as well as general monetary policy issues, in speeches, the transcripts of which are available on the Board's Web site, www.federalreserve.gov."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Economist, spring, 1997, Edward M. Gramlich, "Reflections of a Policy Economist," pp. 22-30.

Economic Books, September, 1986, p. 33.

Journal of Economic Literature, September, 1986, pp. 1310-1311.

Wall Street Review of Books, winter, 1982, pp. 70-71.