America and the Global Economy

Myron Scholes Global Markets Forum

October 18, 2007 6–8 p.m., Council on Foreign Relations (NYC)

Roger Altman, Chairman, Evercore Partners
Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics

In a friendly discussion in New York, advisers to two presidential primary candidates agreed that two big issues facing the next administration will be energy policy, including climate change, and trends in global financial and economic flows as countries as China and India continue to grow. Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics and an adviser to Senator Barack Obama, said the United States must also do more to invest in skills. Evercore Partners Chairman Roger C. Altman, ’69, who advised Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign, also called attention to a severe long-term fiscal outlook in the United States, including increasingly painful choices for Medicare if the problem is not addressed soon.

Speaker Profiles


Roger Altman, chairman of Evercore Partners, began his investment banking career at Lehman Brothers and became a general partner of that firm in 1974. Beginning in 1977, he served as assistant secretary of the US Treasury for four years. He then returned to Lehman Brothers, later becoming co-head of overall investment banking, a member of the firm’s Management Committee and its Board. He remained in those positions until the firm was sold to Shearson/American Express.

In 1987, Mr. Altman joined The Blackstone Group as vice chairman, head of the Firm’s merger and acquisition advisory business and a member of its Investment Committee. Mr. Altman also had primary responsibility for Blackstone’s international business.

Beginning in January 1993, Mr. Altman returned to Washington to serve as deputy secretary of the US treasury for two years. In 1996, he formed Evercore Partners which has become the most active investment banking boutique in the world. To date, the Firm has handled $300 billion of merger, acquisition and restructuring transactions. In its other role, Evercore also manages approximately $1.5 billion of private equity and venture capital assets. Mr. Altman is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New Visions for Public Schools and The American Museum of Natural History, where he also serves as Chairman of the Investment Committee. He also is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations and serves on its Finance and Investment Committee. He received an A. from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics, currently works as a member of the US Census Advisory Committee, a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a columnist for the New York Times. His research interests include the internet, the new economy, government policy, and taxes. He has been named a 2006-2007 Fulbright Fellow. He will research internet taxation in the US. and European Union while spending part of the upcoming academic year at the London School of Economics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, also in London.

Sponsorship

This event is part of the Initiative on Global Markets and is generously sponsored by Myron Scholes.