Summer 2008

Stanford’s economists are breaking ground on a new high-tech home. In May 2008, construction began on 32,000 square feet of new office space and conference centers for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).

The John A. & Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, supported by major grants from the Koret Foundation and Taube Philanthropies, will include the state-of-the-art Koret-Taube Conference Center, advancing the institute’s goal of fostering collaboration and debate, and will provide office space for researchers, visiting scholars, and policymakers. By creating more space for these groups to interact, SIEPR hopes to bring the quality and originality of its researchers’ work to even higher levels.

Since 1982, SIEPR has found innovative ways to bring research out of the university and into the “real world.” The brainchild of Koret Board Member Michael Boskin (a SIEPR scholar) and Professor of Economics Paul David, the nonpartisan economic policy research organization drew on an idea brought forth earlier by former Secretary of State George Shultz and Koret Board President Tad Taube: Create a central point for economics scholars, currently spread throughout the university, to meet with each other and with business and government leaders to debate and analyze ideas. SIEPR has thus become a convener of economics discourse at Stanford.

Through sponsorship of their “Critical Issues” sessions, Koret has supported the high-profile and prestigious SIEPR Economic Summits, which link the academic community with policymakers and leaders from the private sector. The 2007 summit included a keynote address from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke; the 2008 summit included a keynote address by United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The “Critical Issues” sessions emphasized the leading points of interest for each summit through panel discussion and debate.

Koret has also supported other SIEPR conferences covering a variety of topics, including “Communications Policy,” at which Martin Perry, chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke; and “Market Design,” which focused on how game theory and market design could be applied to real world problems like kidney exchanges, school choice algorithms, timber auctions, and spectrum exchanges.

Over the past 25 years, SIEPR scholars have served on the Council of Economic Advisors, at the U.S. Treasury Department and Department of Justice, at the International Monetary Fund, on the Federal Communications Commission, and on the Securities and Exchange Commission. Past SIEPR directors have included some of the most respected economists in the field, and the organization’s support and interest from the business community has grown substantially as the institute has matured.