Henry J. Aaron

Henry J. Aaron
Born	Henry Jacob Aaron 1936 (age 89–90)
Education	University of California, Los Angeles Harvard University
Occupations	Policy analyst, economist
Employer	Brookings Institution
Known for	Healthcare policy analysis
Board member of	Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security Advisory Board

Henry Jacob Aaron (born 1936) is an American policy analyst and economist. He is the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he has been employed since 1968. ^[1] He served as director of the program from 1990 through 1996. ^[1]

Aaron was nominated to the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) by President Barack Obama, receiving confirmation to the post by the United States Senate in 2014. He served as chairman of the Board of the SSAB. ^[2] He has been a proponent of a single-payer health care system, ^{[3] [4]} though he has questioned the feasibility of implementation in the United States. ^[5]

In 2010, Aaron was awarded the Daniel M. Holland Medal by the National Tax Association in recognition for lifetime achievement in taxation and public finance. ^[6]

Career

Aaron graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. From 1967 until 1989, in addition to his role at Brookings, Aaron taught at the University of Maryland. ^[1] From 1977 to 1978, he was Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the next year, he chaired the Advisory Council on Social Security. From 1996 to 1997, Aaron was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Aaron received the 2007 Robert M. Ball Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Insurance. ^[7]

On September 8, 2014, Aaron's nomination by President Barack Obama to be Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 54–43. ^[8]

Aaron concluded that rationing of healthcare was necessary. ^[9]

Affiliations

Aaron is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the advisory committee of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He has been vice-president and member of the executive committee of the American Economics Association and president of the Association of Public Policy and Management. He has also served on the board of trustees of Georgetown University and the board of directors of the College Retirement Equity Fund. ^[10] He serves on the board of directors of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. ^[11]

Publications

Aaron has written dozens of articles, which have been cited over ten thousand times according to Google Scholar. ^[12]

Some of his publications with the highest citations include:

• Aaron, Henry J. (1972). Shelter and Subsidies: Who Benefits from Federal Housing Policies? . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. ISBN   9780815700173.
• Aaron, Henry J. (1975). Who Pays the Property Tax? A New View . Studies of Government Finance, Second Series. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. ISBN   9780815700227. OCLC   1504973. ERIC   ED132676.
• Auerbach, Alan J.; Aaron, Henry J.; Hall, Robert E. (1983). "Corporate Taxation in the United States" (PDF). Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 1983 (2): 451–513. doi:10.2307/2534295. ISSN   0007-2303. JSTOR   2534295.
• Aaron, Henry J.; Schwartz, William B. (1984). The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. ISBN   9780815700340. OCLC   10274789.
• Aaron, Henry (2010). Politics and the Professors: The Great Society in Perspective. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN   978-0-8157-1777-5.

References

1. "Henry J. Aaron". Brookings Institution. May 4, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
2. "Update: New Social Security Advisory Board Members Confirmed". Yahoo News. Social Security Advisory Board. September 9, 2014. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
3. Rivlin, Alice (1992). Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, the States & the Federal Government . Brookings Institution Press. p.  163. ISBN   9780815791683.
4. Fitzgerald, Jay (January 25, 2015). "Costs derail Vermont's dream of a single-payer health plan". Boston Globe. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
5. Aaron, Henry (January 26, 2016). "The impossible (pipe) dream". Brookings Institution. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
6. "Daniel M. Holland Medal". National Tax Association. Retrieved May 24, 2025.
7. Gray, Johanna. "Henry J. Aaron". National Academy of Social Insurance. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
8. "Congressional Record 113th Congress (2013-2014)". THOMAS . Archived from the original on December 15, 2019. Retrieved September 18, 2014.
9. Aaron, Henry (January 30, 2006). "A healthcare prescription that's hard to swallow". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
10. "Henry J. Aaron" (PDF). www.brookings.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 23, 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
11. "Henry Aaron". Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Archived from the original on April 27, 2015. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
12. "Henry J. Aaron". scholar.google.com. Retrieved November 10, 2020.

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Roberts, Russ (November 15, 2007). "Henry Aaron on Health Care Costs". EconTalk . Library of Economics and Liberty.