Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Long-Term Fiscal Policy

Deadline to apply: December 4, 2025, at 5 pm EST

Description 

The NBER, with the generous support of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, is accepting applications for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship. This fellowship will enable up to two outstanding early-career economists to visit the NBER’s Cambridge office for one year of intensive research on economic aspects of long-term fiscal policy.

Applications from researchers who are just completing their PhD, as well as from junior faculty members who may be able to combine this fellowship with an early career leave, are welcome.

Fellows will be selected based on the panel’s assessment of their potential to make an important contribution to the understanding of long-term fiscal policy.

The subject matter may be any aspect of long-term fiscal policy, including but not limited to:

  • Analysis of how the level of government debt affects economic growth and of the feedback loops between the debt-to-GDP ratio and the growth rate of spending and taxes.
  • Investigation of the role of entitlement, spending, and tax reform in addressing long-run structural deficits in the US or other nations.
  • Exploration of the links between tax policy and economic growth, with particular emphasis on the way different tax instruments impact an economy’s long-term growth.
  • Research on the fiscal consequences of an aging population, including the effect of changing age mix on the level and composition of government spending, on the domestic demand for government debt, and on labor markets.
  • Study of fiscal institutions and fiscal rules to learn whether certain institutional structures, such as balanced-budget rules, are associated with lower structural deficits.
  • Consideration of the interplay between federal and state fiscal policy in the United States and the role of intergovernmental transfers of revenue authority and program responsibility in affecting measured federal or state fiscal positions.

Compensation

Each fellowship consists of a stipend of $105,000, reimbursement for health insurance, a travel and research allowance, and an office at the NBER. 

Eligibility

  • Just completing PhDs or junior faculty members who can combine this fellowship with an early career leave.
  • Expected to spend a year visiting the NBER’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • Applicants must have completed their PhD by June 2026.
  • Fellowship-related activities are expected to represent the fellow’s primary responsibility during the year.
  • By June 15, 2027, fellows must provide the selection committee with a copy of at least one research paper on long-term fiscal policy that is the result of the research during the fellowship year.

Application Deadline 

5:00pm EST on Thursday, December 4, 2025. Will be notified in January 2026, for the 2026–27 academic year.

Link to Apply

Application Requirements

  • Curriculum vitae.
  • Research proposal not to exceed 3 pages double-spaced, and no more than two additional pages of tables, references, and graphs, describing the proposed research for the fellowship year.
  • One recommendation letter (preferably from a dissertation supervisor or other researcher familiar with their work).

Selection Committee

The selection committee will be chaired by James Poterba of MIT, and will include Alan Auerbach (University of California, Berkeley), Valerie Ramey (University of California, San Diego), and Kent Smetters (University of Pennsylvania).

Funder

Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Contact 

Abbie Murrell murrella@nber.org