Linda Bilmes | Blog

Linda J. Bilmes is widely considered one of the leading experts in US budgeting and public finance. She has held several senior positions in government, including Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration, and US Representative to several high-ranking commissions, including a Treasury Department commission to examine the viability of the Inter-American Investment Corporation. She was recently appointed to the National Parks Centennial Commission.  Previously, Bilmes spent eight years with the global management consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group, where she focused on industrial strategy and transition to market-based democracy in Eastern Europe and Russia. Bilmes is a now a full-time faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she teaches budgeting, applied budgeting, and public finance. She is a faculty affiliate with the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and the Rappaport Center for Greater Boston.  At Harvard, Bilmes runs an innovative program to assist local cities and towns with their financial health, leading teams of graduate student volunteers who work in the communities. She also conducts the Harvard Institute of Politics budgeting workshops for newly-elected Mayors and Members of Congress. Bilmes has written extensively on financial and budgetary issues, including the cost of the Iraq War, veterans’ health and disability costs, state and local employee pensions, and federal workforce reform. She is the author of "Soldiers Returning From Iraq and Afghanistan: The Long-term Costs of Providing Veterans Medical Care and Disability Benefits” and co-author (with Joseph Stiglitz) of "The Economic Costs of The Iraq War:  An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of The Conflict." Her book The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service (co-authored with W. Scott Gould) will be published in June, 2008.  Bilmes is a regular commentator on financial topics. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and the Atlantic Monthly.  She is frequently interviewed on TV and radio programs, including the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, CNN's Lou Dobbs Show, ABC’s World News Tonight and NPR's On Point. She recently featured in Charles Ferguson’s award-winning documentary film about Iraq, “No End In Sight”. Bilmes has testified at several congressional hearings regarding the costs of the Iraq war, including the US House of Representatives Budget Committee, Veterans Affairs Committee, and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. Bilmes holds a BA and an MBA from Harvard University.
e: linda_bilmes@ksg.harvard.edu
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William W. Hogan is the Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy. He is Research Director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group at M-R CBG and Chair of the Kennedy School Faculty Appointments Committee. Hogan has served on the faculty of Stanford University, where he founded the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), and he is past president of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE). Professor Hogan's research focuses on the interaction of energy economics and public policy, which, in recent years, has meant an emphasis on the restructuring of the electricity industry in the United States and worldwide. He has worked to design the market structures and market rules by which regional transmission organizations, in various forms, coordinate bid-based markets for energy, ancillary services, and financial transmission rights that allow market participants to hedge congestion costs. Selected papers are available on his website, www.whogan.com. He received his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and his PhD from UCLA.
e: william_hogan@ksg.harvard.edu
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Dr. Jennifer Lerner is Professor of Public Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She also holds faculty affiliations with Harvards Center for Public Leadership, Harvards Psychology Department, Harvards Center for Business and Government, and Harvards Business School (where she teaches executive education). Lerner co-founded and directs the Harvard Kennedy School Bio-Behavioral Laboratory for Decision Research The inter-disciplinary laboratory draws on psychology, economics, and neuroscience to study social and emotional influences on human judgment and decision-making. Her teaching revolves around the same set of topics. Professor Lerner co-founded Harvards doctoral training track in judgment and decision making and will co-create a masters-level course in the field. Professor Lerner has received several awards for her research, including the 2004 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The National Science Foundation and the White House annually award the PECASE as the highest national honor for investigators in the early stages of promising research careers. Lerner completed a Ph.D. (1998) and an M.A. (1994) at the University of California at Berkeley, a B.A. at the University of Michigan Honors College, and a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA. Grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have nearly continuously funded her training and research. Professor Lerners research can be found in scientific journals as well as in popular print (e.g., The New York Times) and broadcast media (e.g., Good Morning America). She also gives lectures at universities and government organizations around the world including NATO Headquarters (Brussels) and The White House (Office of Science and Technology Policy).
e:Jennifer_Lerner@ksg.harvard.edu
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Erich Muehlegger is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, the faculty chair of M-RCBG’s Regulatory Policy Program and a fellow of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program and the Harvard University Center for the Environment.  His research interests include industrial organization, economic regulation, and environmental policy. His current research projects include estimating the effects of regulatory innovation on illegal activity, modeling cross-border cigarette excise tax avoidance, and estimating the relative efficacy of different hybrid vehicle incentives.  Other research interests include the effects of heterogeneous regulation, and policy implications of behavioral economics. He received his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, where his research studied market impacts of state and local environmental regulation of gasoline content. 

e: erich_muehlegger@ksg.harvard.edu
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e: john_ruggie@ksg.harvard.edu
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Mary Ruggie

Mary Ruggie, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, teaches courses on comparative health policy, inequalities in health care, and gender and health. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, and has taught at Barnard College, the University of California at San Diego, and Columbia University, where she was Chair of the Department of Sociology. Her publications include The State and Working Women: A Comparison of Britain and Sweden and Realignments in the Welfare State: Health Policy in the U.S., Britain and Canada. Her newest book is Marginal to Mainstream: Alternative Medicine in America (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
e: mary_ruggie@ksg.harvard.edu
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