Chair Pays Tribute to Economist William
Brainard’s Leadership
 New Haven, Conn. — A new professorship has been established in
honor of Yale economist and former provost William C. Brainard by his friends and
colleagues.
Benjamin Polak has been named the inaugural William C. Brainard Professor of Economics (see related story).
The professorship celebrates Brainard's leadership in teaching and research. It was
created after David F. Swensen, the University's chief investment officer and a former
student of Brainard's, enlisted the support of others whose lives were touched by the
economist's "impressive intellect, spirited discourse and generous spirit."
"Bill Brainard influenced my life in many profound ways," Swensen said in a
letter to friends and colleagues. "As my teacher, dissertation adviser and friend,
Bill provided the intellectual framework for my approach to economics and finance. Without
Bill's many important interventions in my life, my personal direction (and, perhaps,
Yale's financial direction) would have been quite different."
Brainard is a specialist in economic theory, macroeconomics and monetary theory. He earned
his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale in 1959 and 1963, respectively, and has taught at the
University since 1962. In 1972, he and the Nobel Prize-winning Yale economist James Tobin
published "Is Growth Obsolete?" — an article that introduced the Measure of
Economic Welfare as the first model for economic sustainability assessment.
Brainard was provost of the University from 1981 to 1986 and twice served as director of
the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics. He also chaired the Department of
Economics. He was named the Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics in 1987 and
became the first faculty member to hold the Arthur Okun Professorship in 1991.
In 1996, he was elected chair of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. A fellow
of the Econometric Society and a member of the American Economic Association, he has
served as co-editor of the Brooking Papers on Economic Activity.
Brainard's former students and colleagues at Yale held a major conference on campus
in his honor in 2001.
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