Alan S. Blinder has been on the Princeton faculty since 1971, taking time off from January 1993 through January 1996 for service in the U.S. government--first as a member of President Clinton's original Council of Economic Advisers, and then as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In addition to his academic writings [books, academic articles] and his best-selling introductory textbook, he has written many newspaper and magazine; columns and op-eds and, in recent years, has been a regular columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He also appears frequently on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and elsewhere. Dr. Blinder was previously President of the Eastern Economic Association and Vice President of the American Economic Association. He has been elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS). In October 2023, he was awarded the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize by the AAPSS.

A lively and concise narrative that is sure to become a classic, A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021 is filled with vital lessons for anyone who wants to better understand where the economy has been—and where it might be headed. Alan Blinder, one of the world’s most influential economists and one of the field’s best writers, draws on his deep firsthand experience to provide an authoritative account of sixty years of monetary and fiscal policy in the United States. Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this is an insider’s story of macroeconomic policy that hasn’t been told before—one that is a pleasure to read, and as interesting as it is important.