Biography
Matthew D. Gelfand, PhD, CFA, is a senior economist, senior investment advisor, and managing director of Rockefeller Capital Management. Prior to joining Rockefeller in 2010, he was with several institutional investment-advisory firms, including Strategic Investment Group where he was responsible for more than $1.2 billion of globally diversified assets, and Calvert Group, a leader in socially responsible investing. He also worked as an economist with the Federal Reserve Board and Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates. Gelfand is a CFA charterholder and a Certified Financial Planner™ professional. He earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale College, both in economics. He was on the board of directors and remains on the investment policy committee of the Forward Association, a nonprofit founded in 1898, and is on the investment and finance committees of the Wallace Global Fund, a private foundation, where he now serves as treasurer. He has spoken about investments at numerous professional conferences and has appeared on a number of occasions on CNBC to discuss the monetary policy outlook.
In this reprint of a collection of lectures, the Nobel Prize–winning author expounds on regional and international regulation and monetary and fiscal policy, as well as a host of other economic topics. His insights predate but point toward the recent global financial crisis, and his guidance is timely and critical for a global economy still facing the fallout from the crisis.
The author conveys a deep appreciation of the workings of the US fiscal machine and how fiscal policy — government spending and tax revenue policy — affects every aspect of the economy. Most likely to interest financial analysts are the chapters that function as an instruction manual on the mechanics of fiscal policy. They draw on a large body of data and insightful analysis yet engagingly written in layman’s terms rather than economic jargon.