Jeffrey Frankel is James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He directs the program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is also a member of the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which officially declares recessions. Appointed to the Council of Economic Advisers by President Clinton in 1996 and subsequently confirmed by the Senate, he served until 1999. Before moving East, he had been professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is on advisory panels for the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Boston, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. His research interests include international finance, currencies, monetary and fiscal policy, commodities, regional blocs, and global environmental issues. He was born in San Francisco, graduated from Swarthmore College, and received his Economics PhD from MIT.