Michael Boskin

Michael Boskin

Michael Jay Boskin (born September 23, 1945) is the T. M. Friedman Professor of Economics and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He also is Chief Executive Officer and President of Boskin & Co., an economic consulting company.

Boskin holds B.A. with highest honors, M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, earned in 1967, 1968, and 1971 respectively. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

He joined Stanford University in 1970. He is a Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research.

In government he is best known for serving as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under George H. W. Bush and as Chairman of a Congressional Advisory Commission on the Consumer Price Index. That commission, known as the Boskin Commission, is controversial for introducing changes into the calculation of the Consumer Price Index that some critics believe make the index report inflation as lower than it actually is.

Boskin has been a director of Exxon Mobil since 1996. He is also a director of Oracle Corporation, Shinsei Bank, and Vodafone Group plc (1999-2008). He serves on the Commerce Department's Advisory Committee on the National Income and Product Accounts. Boskin is the recipient of the Adam Smith Prize and other professional awards.

According to Patrick Buchanan, in Death of American Manufacturing, Boskin was sanguine about the transfer of United States manufacturing overseas.