UW–Madison economics professor Kim Ruhl appointed as member of President’s Council of Economic Advisers

In an announcement today from the White House, Kim Ruhl, Curt and Sue Culver Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been appointed a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Established by Congress in 1946, the CEA comprises three economists who advise the U.S. president on a wide range of economic policy issues based on data, research and evidence.

Ruhl, co-director of The Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE), is the first economist from UW–Madison to serve as a member of the CEA (former chancellor Rebecca Blank was a member of the CEA while a professor at Northwestern University). Ruhl is an expert in international economics and has written on models of firm heterogeneity, trade policy dynamics and tariffs.

“It is a real honor to be appointed as a member of CEA,” Ruhl says. “I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to apply my training and expertise as an economist to timely public policy issues and I am very much looking forward to serving my country and my president.”

The CEA advises the U.S. president on domestic and international economic policy. President Donald Trump appointed Ruhl and Senior Vice Dean and MUTB Professor of Internation Business at Columbia School of Business, Pierre Yared, both of whom will work with CEA chairman, Stephen Miran, and the rest of the president’s economics team.

“Kim is a deeply insightful economist, and we are thrilled that he will be in a position to impact economic policy at a national level through his appointment to the Council,” says Dean of the College of Letters & Science Eric Wilcots. “We have truly appreciated his service as co-Director of CROWE; service that speaks to his commitment to translating research to practice and policy.”

Ruhl will take a leave from UW–Madison to serve on the CEA; Ananth Seshadri, professor of economics and Mary Sue & Mike Shannon Distinguished Chair, will serve as CROWE’s director. CROWE’s mission is to support and share economic policy research from a market perspective, with a particular focus on the Wisconsin economy and state-level economic policy issues.

“Kim Ruhl is one of the world’s preeminent trade economists and is an outstanding choice for the CEA,” says Walker Family Distinguished Chair and chair of the Department of Economics Christopher Taber. “He is gifted with the ability to navigate the gap between academic research and actual implementation of economic ideas, which will lead him to be effective at informing policy, based on evidence. This is truly the Wisconsin Idea in action.”