The National Bureau of Economic Research opened its doors in 1920 during heated debates over income distribution. Malcolm Rorty and Nachum Stone founded the organization to fill a critical gap in economic data.
Columbia University professor Wesley Clair Mitchell served as the first director of research for twenty-five years. Early projects measured labor's share of national income while studying unemployment patterns.
Martin S. Feldstein moved the headquarters to Cambridge, Massachusetts when he became president in 1977. James Poterba leads the organization today as president and CEO from MIT.
Simon Kuznets received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1971 for developing U.S. national income accounts. Peter Howitt won the award in 2025 while Daron Acemoglu claimed it in 2024.
This committee defines recessions as significant declines in economic activity lasting more than a few months. The NBER examines real GDP, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales instead of simply two consecutive quarters of shrinking gross domestic product.