The Century Foundation Welcomes Economics Expert Dan Alpert as a Fellow

Jan 20, 2012

Authors: Christy Hicks

Publisher(s): The Century Foundation

January 19, 2012—The Century Foundation welcomes Daniel Alpert, the founding managing partner of Westwood Capital, LLC, as a new fellow. With more than thirty years of international merchant banking and investment banking experience, Alpert has written perceptively about the causes of the economic woes facing America and the rest of the world, and has recommended ambitious policy responses. In recent years, he has researched and written extensively on the housing and credit bubbles and the resulting economic crisis. In 2011, he conceived and co-authored, along with Nouriel Roubini, New York University Professor of Economics, and Robert Hockett, a Professor of Financial Law at Cornell University, “The Way Forward,” a white paper that has been credited with providing a clear and concise explanation of the issues that gave rise to today’s global financial problems. The paper was published by the New America Foundation.

Alpert discusses the global excess of labor, debt, and supply in the context of “The Way Forward,” as well as economic policy issues and solutions he will pursue as a TCF fellow, in a new Policycast on The Century Foundation website, www.tcf.org.  You can listen to the podcast here.

“Dan Alpert brings to The Century Foundation a unique understanding of today’s global economic crisis and its root causes, as well as fresh ideas and recommendations for addressing the problem,” said Janice Nittoli, president of The Century Foundation.  “We are so excited to provide a new platform for him to further explore, develop and promote these important national and international policy solutions.”

Alpert writes a well-known finance and macroeconomics blog, Dan Alpert’s 2 Cents, on Economonitor.com (a division of Roubini Global Economics). He is widely quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, and many other periodicals. He is a frequent guest commentator on Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fox Business News, and also appears on CNNI, PBS, and the BBC. He has also advised the U.S. Department of the Treasury on housing and mortgage issues.

Alpert was featured in Inside Job, the 2010 winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Prior to forming Westwood Capital in 1995, he was a partner in Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. He holds a BA in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and lives and works in Manhattan.

Alpert is one of five newly appointed Century Foundation fellows, all of whom are widely recognized as insightful generators of distinctive and provocative public policy ideas. Together they will advance TCF’s mission of providing bold, thought-provoking responses to unequal opportunity in America and the challenges to the United States of the diffusion of global power. The other new fellows are: Michael Cohen, a foreign policy analyst and author who writes about U.S. foreign policy, national security, and foreign assistance, and whose critiques of U.S. military policy, and particularly America’s approach to the Afghanistan war, have proven to be prescient; Amy B. Dean, whose Century Foundation book, A New, New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement, and other work highlights innovative alternatives to traditional unions that have arisen throughout the country and how these local institutions realize economic change; Suzanne Mettler, a Cornell University political scientist who analyzes the problems of policymaking through tax expenditures, sources of the public’s alienation from government through examination of health care reform, and the implications for democracy of higher education policy and stagnating access to college; and Mark Thoma, a University of Oregon economist whose widely read blog, Economist’s View, synthesizes current economic research for non-experts and highlights ideas for strengthening American social insurance and employment opportunities.

“Our new fellows share the rare ability to connect dots about the ways in which U.S. policy has gone astray and how it can be repaired in politically plausible ways over the course of the next decade,” said Greg Anrig, vice president of policy and programs. “In each case, their insights are distinctive and not widely known by the general public, but their arguments are persuasive and have the potential to transform policy debates in the United States.”

The Century Foundation is a progressive nonpartisan think tank. Originally known as the Twentieth Century Fund, it was founded in 1919 and initially endowed by Edward Filene, a leading Republican businessman and champion of fair workplaces and employee ownership strategies, all with an eye to ensuring that economic opportunity is available to all.   Today, TCF issues analyses and convenes and promotes the best thinkers and thinking across a range of public policy questions.  Its work today focuses on issues of equity and opportunity in the United States, and how American values can be best sustained and advanced in a world of more diffuse power.

For more information on The Century Foundation and its work, please visit www.tcf.org. You can keep up with the latest news from Century by signing up for our mailing list, following us on Twitter @tcfdotorg and joining our Facebook page.  For media inquiries, contact Christy Hicks at hicks@tcf.org or (212) 452-7723.