Ben Harris
Counselor to the US Treasury Secretary
US Treasury Department

Ben Harris is the Executive Director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative and a research associate professor at Kellogg. He recently served as the chief economist and economic adviser to the Vice President of the United States. Following his tenure at the White House, he was a senior economic policy adviser with Rokos Capital Management.

In addition to these roles, he currently serves as the chief economist to the evidence-based policy organization Results for America. He was also previously the policy director of The Hamilton Project; a fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings; and deputy director of the Retirement Security Project at Brookings.

Earlier in his career, 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’ primary areas of focus are tax, budget and retirement security. He has published a variety of papers and policy briefs related to topics in public finance and is regularly cited in media reports related to fiscal policy.

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.