In 1982, Feldstein began his stint as chairman of the CEA. He left after two years, citing the need to return to his teaching post in Cambridge (Harvard limits faculty hiatuses to two years).

But Feldstein doesn’t appear to miss life in the nation’s capital.

“It’s been 20 years, and I continue to be involved in a peripheral kind of way with government policy,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to have had a full-time steady dose of that for the last 20 years.”

Feldstein has also advised scores of influential economists who have passed through Harvard’s gates, including University President Lawrence H. Summers, fellow Fed chair candidate and Columbia Business School Dean R. Glenn Hubbard, and KSG professor Liebman, who served as an economic assistant to President Clinton.

Liebman says Feldstein’s benevolent rapport with both Democrats and Republicans has earned him a positive reputation in Washington.

“He’s mentored economists with policy interests regardless of their politics,” Liebman says. “That’s enabled him to have his ideas be very influential no matter who’s running the show in Washington.”

ON THE ISSUES

Feldstein has been an ardent supporter of Bush administration economic policy in recent years.

In the immediate future, Feldstein says the pace of growth will be a chief concern for the American economy.

“We’re looking at a situation where we are unsure whether the economy is slowing down or not,” he says. “We have to work on maintaining economic growth rate and preventing an increase in inflation.”

A trusted outside adviser of President Bush, Feldstein says he supports the president’s efforts to reform Social Security by changing to a system of individual accounts.

Feldstein says he thinks President Bush has done “very well” in general with the American economy, pointing to his handling of the recession, tax reforms, and trade policy as positive steps for the U.S. economy.

But Feldstein does see peccadilloes in the Bush administration’s overall economic policy, but nothing particularly worrying, he says.

“There are always little things but I think the main thrust of policy has been the right one,” he says.

He is also supportive of current Fed chairman Alan Greenspan.