Hausman says that he was also amazed at how Hubbard thrived at Harvard and afterward.

“In terms of being at the top of his profession, it’s extremely unusual for people to come to from University of Central Florida,” he said. “I still can’t get over the fact that he did so well.”

Some of Hubbard’s colleagues say that Feldstein, who could not be reached for comment for this story, took a special interest in working with Hubbard.

“My sense of it was that Feldstein was more the mentor among that team,” says Robinson Professor of Business Administration Jay O. Light. “There’s a strong intellectual linkage from Marty to Glenn.”

DR. HUBBARD GOES TO WASHINGTON

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1983, Hubbard took a professorship at Northwestern, where he received full tenure after just three years. He stayed at Northwestern until 1988 but spent one year as a visiting scholar at the Kennedy School of Government in 1985.

Hubbard went off to Washington in 1991, spending two years as the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Treasury Department under President George H. W. Bush. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he also took on positions at the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research and at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. He also spent a year at the University of Chicago as a visiting professor in 1994 before assuming a professorship at Columbia.

In 2001, Hubbard took on the chairmanship of the CEA under President Bush—one of the top government positions for economists.

Hubbard’s colleagues say that he had a successful two years at the CEA.

“Usually, the CEA doesn’t get much of a role to play. But Glenn has been one of the most influential ones in years,” says Darius Palia, an associate professor at Rutgers who formerly worked at Columbia and who has co-authored several articles with Hubbard.

“In the last 20 years, he’s certainly one of the top people who has served as head of the CEA,” Hausman says. “Glenn is at least as good, if not better, than anyone that worked under Clinton or the first Bush.”

Hubbard is widely recognized as one of the chief architects of the tax cuts that George W. Bush enacted in his first term.

While the tax cuts came under fire when the budget surplus turned into a deficit, Hubbard has publicly defended Bush’s tax cuts and his stance on the economy.

Columbia professor Michael Adler notes that although there has been much debate over the White House’s economic policy, he has heard little criticism of Hubbard’s performance in Washington.

“The worst thing I heard about Glenn was that as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers he would scurry to be seated as close to the president as possible,” Adler says. “Every other mention of him in all the major publications have all been respectful, which amazes me.”