20th-century American economists

Martin Stuart Feldstein ( FELD-styne; November 25, 1939 – June 11, 2019) was an American economist. He was the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He served as president and chief executive officer of the NBER from 1978 to 2008 (with the exception of 1982 to 1984). From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan (where his deficit hawk views clashed with the Reagan administration's large military expenditure policies). Feldstein was also a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty from 2003.

Arthur Melvin "Art" Okun (November 28, 1928 – March 23, 1980) was an American economist. He served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers between 1968 and 1969. Before serving on the C.E.A., he was a professor at Yale University and, afterwards, was a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
In 1968 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.Okun is known in particular for promulgating Okun's law, an observed relationship that states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2.5% lower than its potential GDP. He is also known as the creator of the misery index and the analogy of the deadweight loss of taxation with a leaky bucket. He died on March 23, 1980, of a heart attack.Okun graduated from Columbia College in 1949 with the Albert Asher Green Memorial Prize for the highest GPA. He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia in 1956 before teaching at Yale University.

Clarence Dickinson "Doc" Long, Jr. (December 11, 1908 – September 18, 1994) was a Democratic U.S. Congressman who represented the 2nd congressional district of Maryland from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1985.
Long was born in South Bend, Indiana. He received his bachelor's degree from Washington and Jefferson College in 1932, and his master's degree and Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1935 and 1938, respectively. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Long cycles in the building industry business, public, and residential building in United States cities, 1856-1935." He also served in the United States Navy during World War II. He was a former member of the United States Council of Economic Advisers to the President (1953–54 and 1956–57) and in the 1930s was a professor of economics at Wesleyan University and later Johns Hopkins University (1946–1963). Long voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Long became Chairman of the subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the House Appropriations Committee. In this role he supervised the foreign aid budget. Long's support for the anti-Soviet Mujahideen was recounted in the film Charlie Wilson's War, in which Long was played by Ned Beatty. Long was defeated for re-election by Republican Helen Delich Bentley in 1984.

Hollis Burnley Chenery (January 6, 1918 – September 1, 1994) was an American economist well known for his pioneering contribution in the field of development economics.

John Forrest Kain (November 9, 1935 – August 4, 2003) was an American empirical economist and college professor. He is notable for first hypothesising spatial mismatch theory, whereby he argued that there are insufficient job opportunities in low-income household areas. Kain is also notable for his focus on transport economics, for his long career of teaching at Harvard University and the University of Texas at Dallas, as well as for founding the Texas Schools Project.

Paul Harold Cootner (May 24, 1930 – April 16, 1978) was a financial economist noted for his book The Random Character of Stock Market Prices.
Cootner was born in Logansport, Indiana. He attended the University of Florida, where he earned bachelor's and master's degree. He received a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953.
He worked at Brown University briefly before serving in the Army. He then joined Resources for the Future.
He joined finance faculty of the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1959, where he started work on the "random walk" theory of securities prices, work that led to the 1964 publication of his groundbreaking book.
In 1970, he left MIT to join the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
He died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1978.

Nancy Hays Teeters (July 29, 1930 – November 17, 2014) was an American economist and corporate executive who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1978 to 1984. A member of the Democratic Party, Teeters was the first woman to sit on the Board. She was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to fill out the remainder of the term of Arthur F. Burns, a former chairman of the Fed. Teeters was known for her public statements in which she dissented from the mainstream opinion of the Board and Chairman Paul Volcker.

Gabriel Hauge ( HOW-ghee; March 7, 1914 – July 24, 1981) was a prominent American bank executive and economist. Hauge served as assistant to the president for economic affairs during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Joseph E. Slater (1922–2002), was an economist and intellectual entrepreneur who played a key role in the "de-Nazification" of Germany after World War II. He was instrumental in making the Aspen Institute an important East-West conduit in the Cold War and authored the original blueprint for the Peace Corps.
"The central purpose of Joe's Slater's life has been "to create a network of institutions and people who can generate and transmit tremors that will ultimately 'change things' in an orderly way."

Vance Oakley Packard (May 22, 1914 – December 12, 1996) was an American journalist and social critic. He was the author of several books, including The Hidden Persuaders and The Naked Society. He was a critic of consumerism.