Alan S. Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and co-director of Princeton's Center for Economic Policy Studies. Blinder has been on the Princeton faculty since 1971, taking time off from January 1993 through January 1996 for service in the U.S. government--first as a member of President Clinton's original Council of Economic Advisers, and then as vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In addition to his academic writings (books, academic articles) and his best-selling introductory textbook, he has written many newspaper and magazine columns and op-eds and, in recent years, has presented a monthly television commentary on PBS's Nightly Business Report (PBS commentaries). He also appears regularly on CNBC. Blinder is a past president of the Eastern Economic Association, past vice president of the American Economic Association, and a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.