Stepping down as NBER president.

• Author: Feldstein, Martin
• Position: National Bureau of Economic Research - Martin Feldstein

My decision to step down as president of the NBER was a very difficult one. The NBER has been the central focus of my professional life. I have taken great satisfaction from watching the Bureau grow and become the nation's leading economic research organization--and from being able to shape that growth--the new programs, working groups, projects, conferences, and activities like the Summer Institute and the "pin factory visits."

But after 31 years I was ready to be relieved of the day-to-day administrative responsibilities and to have more time to read and think and write. And I also knew it would be in the interest of the NBER, and therefore of the economics profession, to have a new leader for the Bureau who would bring new ideas and new initiatives.

I am so pleased that the very careful and elaborate search process for my successor, directed by a committee chaired by Mike Moskow, reached the decision that Jim Poterba was the right person for the job and that Jim agreed to take it on. I cannot think of anyone who would be a better leader of the NBER in the years ahead--with his breadth of interests in economics, his intellectual ability, the respect that he has in the profession, and his willingness to give of himself for the benefit of the organization. I'm confident that he will do an outstanding job.

The growth and the success of the Bureau has been due to the quality and the enthusiasm of all of those who have participated in the process. What has happened these past three decades was only possible because of the efforts of the Program Directors, the Working Group leaders, and the heads of the individual projects and of the annual conferences. In all of those years, no one whom I asked to assume these leadership roles disappointed me or their colleagues--a remarkable measure of their commitment to these activities. And, of course, the success of the NBER also reflects the participation of the entire family of Research Associates and Faculty Research Fellows. Your participation in meetings and projects, your research and writing--all of those yellow-covered Working Papers and chapters in NBER volumes--have made the NBER what it is today.

Many thanks are in order on this occasion. The NBER's Board of Directors has been an important source of advice and support throughout these years. I am grateful to all of them and, in particular, to those who served as chairmen. Eli Shapiro, who is here tonight, was chairman of the NBER in 1982 when...