Martin Feldstein (1939–2019)

Martin Feldstein was a Harvard economics professor from 1967 to 2019. He was a leading public finance scholar, public servant and chief executive of what became the world’s most important economics research organisation. His work on health economics, public economics, social insurance and international economics helped transform these fields by applying state-of-the-art empirical methods to address important questions. Most notably, Feldstein identified the importance of the elasticity of taxable income and demonstrated how this parameter can be measured. He served with distinction as chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984 and championed applied economics as head of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1977 to 1982 and 1984 to 2008, which under his leadership reorganised its activities to rejuvenate applied economics research in the US.