Blinder named fellow of American Academy of Political and Social Science

Princeton faculty member Alan Blinder has been inducted into the American Academy of Political and Social Science as the 2009 John Kenneth Galbraith Fellow.

Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, with appointments in both the Department of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The academy, which promotes the social sciences and the use of social science knowledge in the enrichment of public understanding and in the development of public policy, recognized Blinder for his distinguished scholarship on fiscal policy, monetary policy and the distribution of income, and for consistently bringing that knowledge to bear on the public arena.

At a ceremony in May at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Blinder was inducted by his Woodrow Wilson School colleague Douglas Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and current president of the academy. Four other scholars also were inducted: Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University; Morris Fiorina of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; Joseph Nye Jr. of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, a member of Princeton's class of 1958 and a Woodrow Wilson School major; and Lawrence Sherman of the University of Cambridge.

During the induction ceremony Massey said all of the inductees shared "a belief in the value of bringing the power of the intellectual realm -- and the weight of data, research and evidence -- to bear on society's most vexing policy issues," according to a post on the academy's blog. "We have come together to honor a set of individuals who have made particular contributions in that arena -- using the power of their intellects and cutting-edge research to fight poverty, to attack crime and gun violence on our city streets, and to propose an entirely new approach to foreign policy beyond the use of military force. They have helped chart a course for the American economy in the midst of turmoil, to understand the way the unconscious fuels dangerous prejudices and stereotypes, and to improve the ability of elected leaders to understand and better reflect their constituents' preferences."

Blinder earned his A.B. in economics from Princeton in 1967 and has served on the faculty since 1971. He took a public service leave from the University from January 1993 through January 1996, first as a member of President Bill Clinton's original Council of Economic Advisers, and then as vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He is co-director of Princeton's Center for Economic Policy Studies.