Stephanie Aaronson

Vice President and Director – Economic Studies
Brookings Institution

Stephanie Aaronson is the Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. Aaronson joined Brookings in October 2018 after nearly two decades at the Federal Reserve Board where she was most recently the Assistant Director of the Division of Research and Statistics. Aaronson also serves as an advisory board member of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Aaronson is a labor economist whose academic research has examined, among other issues, why an increasing share of Americans are not participating in the labor force. Her research has been published in a variety of academic journals and cited in publications such as the Economist and the New York Times. In her position at the Federal Reserve Board, Aaronson helped in the preparation of the economic forecast submitted to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), provided policy analysis to the Board and FOMC in support of their monetary policy functions, and had oversight of sections that produce analysis, forecasting, and research regarding inflation, monetary policy, and macroeconomic activity and uncertainty.

Aaronson joined the Federal Reserve in 2000, and was appointed chief of what was then the Macroeconomic Analysis section in 2012. Between 2011 and 2012 she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomic Policy at the Department of Treasury, where she received an award for meritorious service. In 2010 she was a visiting scholar in the Department of Economics at Yale University. Aaronson has an AB degree in history from Columbia College and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.