A good deal of every Econ 1 course is aimed at making you better citizens: better-informed voters as you go to the polls and choose the civil servants who as they administer our government make the economic policy decisions that are roughly half of what our government does.
But Econ 1 courses are inevitably too concerned with theory, and not enough concerned with practice. Hence I am very grateful that our own Professor Christina Romer, newly back here at Berkeley from two years in Washington DC serving as President Barack Obama's chief economist in the cabinet-level appointment of Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, has agreed to join us today to tell us about how the rubber met the road on the macroeconomic side over the past two years.
Are you worried that you do not know enough--having only taken Econ 1--to do your job as voters judging economic policies?
Don't be.
I think that one of Christie Romer's predecessors as CEA Chair, Stanford economist and Republican Mike Boskin, says it best. Being Chair of the CEA and advising all the political appointees in the White House is, he says, a lot like teaching Econ 1 at Stanford. Only at Stanford your students do their reading, pay attention, and ask deeper and more thoughtful questions.
Therefore let us welcome the Honorable Christina D. Romer, former Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors and National Economic Council Principal. Her topic is: "Fiscal Policy in the Obama White House: Reasoning, Results, and Challenges Going Forward”
And yes, there will be a question about her talk on the final exam...
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