He was Reuben Zubrow, who has recently retired from the University of Colorado. At that time he was teaching at Indiana University, where I took a summer school course between my freshman and my sophomore year. I decided economics was really fun, so I changed my major. I think the person who probably influenced me most, but a little later in my career, was Joseph Pechman, who was the director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. . . . But economists are useful too.
Presidents face very difficult choices about the economy.
Economists aren't always right, but they know how to structure the choices. And that's why they tend to find themselves in the White House. Alice Rivlin is vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. She was interviewed for the June 1997 Region .