Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Elmendorf to CBO

Congressional leaders have named my long-time friend Doug Elmendorf to be the new head of the Congressional Budget Office. Congratulations to Doug, and kudos to Congress for the fine choice!

Here is something about Doug that you won't see reported in most of the news stories: Many years ago, Doug was head section leader for Ec 10. Because of his broad experience teaching introductory economics, I once hired him and his wife Karen Dynan (now an economist at the Fed) to draft some of the end-of-chapter questions for the first edition of my favorite textbook. Many of those questions remain, sometimes in updated form, in the current edition. (Students may recall having to calculate the money supply in the imaginary economy of Elmendyn.)