For release on delivery
4:35 p.m. EDT
October 25, 2023

Introductory Remarks

by
Jerome H. Powell
Chair
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
at the

2023 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Lecture on Social Science and Public Policy, hosted by
the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Washington, D.C.

October 25, 2023

I am delighted and honored to introduce Professor Alan Blinder as this year's
winner of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize.

The Moynihan Prize honors those who "champion the use of informed judgment
to advance the public good."! In the field of economics, I can think of no better example
of such a champion than Alan Blinder. The very heart of his distinguished career has
been advancing the use of informed judgment in economic policymaking.

As Alan has observed, in our political economy, there exist two neighboring
tribes, sharing common interests but separated by cultural and language barriers. On one
side of the border there is the academy, particularly social scientists, who work to assess
the costs and benefits of public policies, actual and possible. On the other side are the
policymakers, including elected officials as well as those who work at various
government agencies. Folks on the academy side generally feel that the policymakers
would make better policy if they paid more attention to academic work. Meanwhile,
policymakers often look across that divide desiring that academic work pay more
attention to the practical realities of policymaking.

Like Moynihan himself, Alan Blinder is that rare person who both transcends this
barrier and recognizes its significance. As he made clear to the Senate during his
confirmation process to become Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, "Academic

economists are often aloof from practical policy debates; but I have not been."? And he

' See American Academy of Political and Social Science (2022), "The Moynihan Prize," webpage,
paragraph 1, https://www.aapss.org/the-moynihan-prize.

? See Alan S. Blinder (1994), "Attachment to Senate Banking Questionnaire," in Nominations of Alan S.
Blinder, Steven M.H. Wallman, and Philip N. Diehl, hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing,
and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, May 6, Senate Hearing 103-611, 103 Cong. (Washington: Government
Printing Office), p. 54, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/nominations-alan-s-blinder-steven-mh-wallman-
philip-n-diehl-6513.

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has regularly called on his academic colleagues to "train their powerful tools on real-
world issues instead of chasing intellectual will-o'-the-wisps."?

Alan's academic work is a testimony to those principles. He has used the
powerful tools of economics to address the critical policy topics of our time. From his
pathbreaking work on the great stagflation of the 1970s,' through his analysis of central
bank structure, independence, and communications,> to his research on financial crises®
and his masterful summary of the past 60 years of monetary and fiscal policy," Alan's
work is always policy relevant, rigorous, and crystal clear.

Alan has also been a top monetary policymaker, in addition to advising
Presidents, Fed Chairs and numerous other officials on both a formal and informal basis.
But his work goes beyond his excellence as a member of both the academic and
policymaker tribes.

Alan's life's work has featured a continuous effort to foster greater understanding
and communication across the divide. To illustrate this, I will close with two broad
categories of engagement that have been hallmarks of Alan's career.

The first is Alan's work addressing the academy--policy divide itself. Two of his

books, published 30 years apart, show his career-long focus answering this question:

3 See Alan S. Blinder (1997), "What Central Bankers Could Learn from Academics-and Vice Versa,"
Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 11 (Spring), p. 17.

4 See Alan S. Blinder (1979), Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation (New York: Academic Press).

5 See Alan S. Blinder (1998), Central Banking in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press);
Alan Blinder, Charles Goodhart, Philipp Hildebrand, David Lipton, and Charles Wyplosz (2001), How Do
Central Banks Talk? Geneva Reports on the World Economy 3 (Geneva: International Center for
Monetary and Banking Studies), https://www.cimb.ch/uploads/1/1/5/4/115414161/geneva3.pdf; and

Alan S. Blinder (2004), The Quiet Revolution: Central Banking Goes Modern (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press).

6 See Alan S. Blinder (2013), After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work
Ahead (New York: Penguin Press).

7 See Alan S. Blinder (2022), A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021 (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press).

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How can social science, and particularly economics, support good public policies? First
in Hard Heads, Soft Hearts, he articulates the problems these groups have in
communicating and working with each other. He provides guidance and examples of
success and failure while advocating an economic philosophy that combines "profound
respect for the virtues of free markets with profound concern for those the market leaves
behind."* He restated that philosophy more recently in Advice and Dissent, in which he
catalogs his own experience trying to bridge that gap, outlines what that experience has
taught him, and gives additional direction "toward more useful economic advice met by
less political dissent."

The second category is Alan's engagement with the broader American public. He
is the rare public figure who speaks fluently in both English and "Economics," and both
audiences rightly consider him a native speaker. A natural teacher, Alan has
communicated clearly and accessibly over the years with a wide range of audiences,
bringing to bear facts, insights and lessons from history and policymaking. His countless
newspaper columns, broadcast interviews and many books do more than clearly explain
the economic issues of the day. Through them, Alan has managed to make economics
both fascinating and essential to an extraordinarily wide audience. That is doubtless due
in part to his habit of serving up the substance with a healthy dose of humor. Whether it

is an academic article on the economics of brushing teeth,!° a dinner talk outlining

8 See Alan S. Blinder (1987), Hard Heads, Soft Hearts: Tough-Minded Economics for a Just Society
(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company), p. 23.

° Alan S. Blinder (2018), Advice and Dissent: Why America Suffers When Economics and Politics Collide
(New York: Basic Books), p. 308.

'0 See Alan S. Blinder (1974), "The Economics of Brushing Teeth," Journal of Political Economy, vol. 82
(July-August), pp. 887-91.

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critical issues for central bankers with the help of Gilbert and Sullivan,!! or the general
wit on display in any of his regular columns, Alan's style enlivens even the most
technical and dry topics. Moynihan surely would have approved.

A personal note. Over the span of four decades, and counting, for many
policymakers from different sectors of the political forest, and for me personally, Alan
Blinder has been a friend, a source of good advice, a supporter, an insightful critic, a role
model, and a wise soul. In short, a mensch. His published writings as an academic
economist are essential to our work, and beyond count. The same is true of the
friendships he has forged. He embodies so much of what many policymakers aspire to in
his commitment to hard-headed analysis, tempered by a soft heart, that supports good
public policy that benefits all Americans.

Thank you. I am delighted and honored to introduce Professor Alan Blinder of

Princeton University, this year's winner of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize.

"! See Alan S. Blinder (2000), "Critical Issues for Modern Major Central Bankers," paper presented at
"Monetary Policy-Making under Uncertainty," a conference organized by the European Central Bank and
the Center for Financial Studies of the University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, December 3, 1999, pp. 64-74,
https://www.princeton.edu/blinder/papers/OOECB.pdf.