As a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Foundation Fellow for the Eastern Bank Foundation, Jeff Fuhrer has just released his new book, The Myth That Made Us (MIT Press, September 2023). The book exposes how false narratives—of a supposedly post-racist nation, of the self-made man, of the primacy of profit- and shareholder value-maximizing for businesses, and of minimal government interference—have been used to excuse gross inequities and to shape and sustain the US economic system that delivers them. In addition, he is working with a large collaborative to update the findings of the Federal Reserve’s 2015 “Color of Wealth in Boston” study. This group hopes to use the new findings to design programs and policies to close the wealth gap in the Greater Boston metro area and surrounding communities. Jeff recently finished a 2-1/2 year term as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In that capacity, he conducted research on the Federal Reserve’s new monetary policy framework, and sources of the racial and ethnic wealth gaps. Jeff previously served as director of research, executive vice president and senior policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has been an associate economist of the Federal Open Market Committee and regularly attended this key US policymaking meeting with the Bank’s president. Fuhrer began his career at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in DC. He has been active in economic research for more than three decades and has served as an associate editor for the American Economic Review. Fuhrer has published numerous scholarly papers on the interactions among monetary policy, inflation, consumer spending, and asset prices. He has been married for 42 years and has three grown children. Fuhrer earned an AB in economics, graduating first in the department with highest honors from Princeton University. He received his MA and PhD in economics from Harvard University.
