National Bureau of Economic Research

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." The NBER is well-known for providing start and end dates for recessions in the United States.

The NBER is the largest economics research organization in the United States. Many of the American winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics were NBER Research Associates. Many of the Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers have also been NBER Research Associates, including the former NBER President and Harvard Professor, Martin Feldstein.

The NBER's current President and CEO is Professor James M. Poterba of MIT.

History

The NBER was founded in 1920. Its first staff economist, director of research, and one of its founders was American economist Wesley Mitchell. The Russian American economist Simon Kuznets was working at the NBER when the U.S. government asked him to help organize a system of national accounts in 1930, which became the beginning of an official measurement of GDP and other related indices of economic activity. The NBER is currently located in Cambridge, Massachusetts with branch offices in Palo Alto, California, and New York City.

Research

The NBER's research activities are mostly identified by 19 research programs on different subjects and 14 working...
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