Alice Rivlin '52, whose distinguished career included serving on the senior staff of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Johnson administration and as the first director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), passed away on Tuesday at 88.
Rivlin joined the Brookings Insitution as a research fellow in 1957, earned her P.h.D. from Radcliffe in 1958, and would remain affiliated with Brookings for the next 60 years, leaving for periods of civil service, and rejoining. She became one of the nation’s most influential economists and public policy experts. In addition to her work with the Johnson administration and as director of the CBO, she served as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget and Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve during the Clinton administration.
Rivlin was a distinguished trustee emeritus of Bryn Mawr. She spoke to students in and was a panelist for a discussion at Reunion 2017.
The Brookings Institution fondly remembered their colleague on Tuesday.
“Alice Rivlin was renowned for her exceptional contributions to so many areas of public policy and her distinguished public service as founder of the Congressional Budget Office, head of OMB and Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board,” says Janet Yellen, Distinguished Fellow in Residence for Economic Studies and the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. “Alice had a hard head and a soft heart—a pragmatic approach to achieving fiscal sanity and assessing costs and benefits of policy alternatives, combined with deep concern about the impact of policy on people. To women in economics, including me, Alice was a mentor, a role model, and an inspiration.”
Read the full remembrance on Look for more on Rivlin's legacy in an upcoming Alumnae Bulletin.