Rebecca M. Blank

University of Michigan

Rebecca M. Blank is the Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, and Professor of Economics. She is also the co-director of the National Poverty Center at the Ford School, funded by HHS to promote poverty-related research. In the current academic year (2007-08) she is on leave as the Robert V. Kerr Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 1999-2007 she was dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Prior to coming to Michigan, she served as a Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, from 1997-1999. She has been Professor of Economics at Northwestern University and served as the first Director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. Professor Blank’s research has focused on the interaction between the macroeconomy, government anti-poverty programs, and the behavior and well-being of low-income families. Her 1997 book, It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty, won the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations. Her more recent work includes the books The New World of Welfare (jointly edited with Ron Haskins, 2001, Brookings Press), Is the Market Moral? (co-authored with William McGurn, 2003, Brookings Press), and Working and Poor (jointly edited with Sheldon Danziger and Robert Schoeni, 2006, Russell Sage Press.). She has served in a wide variety of advisory and professional roles. She is a faculty affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.