Ben Harrison

Ben Harris completed a stint as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist with the U.S. Treasury Department in March 2023. In this role, Harris was a close adviser to Secretary Yellen, the Administration’s lead official on the price cap on Russian oil, and a key staffer in the development of the Build Back Better legislation.

Prior to joining Treasury, Harris was the Executive Director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative and a research associate professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, in addition to serving as the chief economist to the evidence-based policy organization Results for America. He was also the senior advisor to the Biden campaign, where he was a lead contributor to the development of the Biden platform and featured surrogate for economic issues. He recently published a book titled The Retirement Challenge, with Martin N. Bailey, addressing some of the most vexing problems facing the American retirement system.

Earlier in his career, he served as the chief economist and economic adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden, was the policy director of The Hamilton Project, a fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, and deputy director of the Retirement Security Project.

In addition, Harris was a senior research associate with the Urban Institute and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Harris worked at the White House as a senior economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, where he specialized in fiscal policy and retirement security. He has also served as a research economist at the Brookings Institution and as a senior economist with the Budget Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Harris has also taught as an adjunct professor at the policy schools at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University.

Harris' has published a variety of academic papers and policy briefs related to topics in public finance and has been regularly cited in media reports related to fiscal policy. His op-eds have been widely published, including frequent publication in the Wall Street Journal.

He holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University, in addition to a master's degree in economics from Cornell University and a master's degree in quantitative methods from Columbia University. He earned his BA in economics at Tufts University. In 2000, Harris was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Namibia.