Michael R. Strain

Michael R. Strain is Paul F. Oreffice Senior Fellow in Political Economy and Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also Professor of Practice at Georgetown University and a contributing columnist for the Financial Times.

Strain’s research and writing is in a wide range of areas, including labor markets, public finance, social policy, and macroeconomics. He has published over 50 scholarly articles in academic and policy journals. He is the editor or coeditor of four books on a variety of economic issues, and is the author of The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It), which challenges the narrative of economic despair presented by populists in both political parties and analyzes longer-term trends in economic outcomes for workers and households.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. Strain serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political & Social Science. He is a research fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn and a research affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Strain has served on several committees and working groups at the intersection of academic research and economic and social policy, including the American Academy's Commission on Reimagining Our Economy, and also for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and for the National Academy of Social Insurance, of which he is an elected member.