The White House announced on January 23 that President Obama is appointing the Woodrow Wilson School's Eldar Shafir to the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability. Shafir is the William Stewart Tod Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at the School. His research focuses on descriptive analyses of decision making, and on issues related to behavioral economics, with a focus on decision making in the context of poverty and on the application of behavioral research to policy.

The President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability was created in January 2010 and is composed of two ex officio Federal officials and 13 non-governmental members appointed by the President with relevant backgrounds, such as financial services, consumer protection, financial access, and education. The role of the Council is to advise the President and the Secretary of the Treasury on means to promote and enhance individuals' and families' financial capability through financial education and financial access.   Key themes of the Council’s work include “building a financially capable workforce and retiree community, which is necessary for a stable and globally competitive economy, working to ensure that financial education takes its rightful place in American schools, and encouraging Americans to learn the core concepts of personal finance at the heart of their lives – in their families and in their communities.”      

Shafir is past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, a member of the Russell Sage Foundation Behavioral Economics Roundtable, research affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action, and fellow of the Filene Research Institute, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is also co-founder and director of Ideas42, a social science research and development lab.