Marianne Wanamaker

Wanamaker has a reputation as a sought-after economics expert, in part from sitting on prestigious national advisory boards.

Economics - Faculty

Marianne Wanamaker has recently been attracting media attention, with the likes of Fox News and the Washington Post requesting her input. Wanamaker, an associate professor of economics with UT’s Haslam College of Business, has a reputation as a sought-after economics expert, in part from sitting on prestigious national advisory boards.

For the 2017-2018 academic year, she took a leave of absence to serve on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and act as the chief domestic economist. This year, she was named to the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, which is co-chaired by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump.

“I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to simultaneously serve my country and do the work that I love,” Wanamaker says.

The President’s Council is tasked with developing an annual Economic Report of the President, a congressionally mandated document due every February, which the president uses to help formulate his agenda for the U.S. economy.

She describes the council as having “supported evidence-based policymaking for more than 70 years,” and says that she felt fortunate to join the group at a time when the economy was a focus of keen national interest.

The 25-member workforce policy advisory board aims to develop and implement strategies to revamp the American workforce for the well-paid, in-demand jobs of the 21st century.

“The economics profession has produced a wealth of evidence to inform some of the board’s key questions, and I look forward to bringing those perspectives to the board’s process,” Wanamaker says.

At UT, she is a Kinney Family Faculty Fellow, a Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research Fellow and a BB&T Scholar in Markets, Capitalism and Ethics. Her research interests include American economic history, education, demography and labor economics. Her teaching subjects include undergraduate introductory economics and business ethics and business strategy for MBA students.

Wanamaker also is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Economic History and Explorations in Economic History.