White House Television Office via Ronald Reagan Presidential Library · Public domain

An American economist who chaired Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984, where his deficit-hawk instincts put him at odds with an administration pursuing large military spending increases. He led Harvard's economics department and spent three decades as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, shaping the influential empirical work that agency produces on taxation, Social Security, and macroeconomic policy.