State Capacity for Building Infrastructure
This paper, by Zachary Liscow, examines state capacity for infrastructure construction in the United States. It identifies three elements of state capacity that drive up costs and slow down timelines: insufficient personnel, onerous procedures, and a lack of adequate tools. Liscow offers specific suggestions about ways to address these challenges and improve US public capacity ...
Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism
The Aspen Economic Strategy Group’s seventh annual policy volume focuses on the theme, Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism. The volume’s publication comes at a time when US policymakers are turning away from free-market principles in favor of protectionist policies and more active government-directed industrial policy. These shifts, combined with growing economic and political difficulties including the ...
Top 12 Charts of 2024 from the AESG
As a group devoted to advancing evidence-based economic policy, the AESG appreciates the powerful role that charts play in telling the story of our economy. Enjoy twelve figures that showcase our work in 2024! Figure 1: Manufacturing’s share of employment in the US has fallen consistently since the end of the Second World War. In ...
Key Takeaways From “The American Economy in a New Era”
Watch a recording of the event here. On August 5, 2026, the Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) hosted The American Economy in a New Era featuring Stanford University economist Erik Brynjolfsson and Lazard CEO and Chairman Peter Orszag in conversation with AESG Director Melissa S. Kearney. Opening the AESG’s sixth public program — held immediately ...
Ruth Porat
RUTH PORAT has been President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google since September 1, 2023. In this role, she is responsible for the Company’s corporate investments and investment vehicles, including GV and CapG, the Other Bets investment portfolio, Real Estate and Workplace Services, and other Company infrastructure. She regularly engages with policymakers and ...
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
MITCHELL E. DANIELS, JR. served as a two-term governor of Indiana from 2005-13 and as Purdue’s 12th president from 2013-22. He subsequently served as board chair of the Purdue Research Foundation before returning as the university’s interim president in 2026. Daniels was elected governor in his first bid for elected office, and then re-elected with ...
Michael Froman
MICHAEL FROMAN is President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He previously served as Vice Chairman and President, Strategic Growth, at Mastercard; Chairman of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth; and as a Distinguished Fellow at CFR. From June 2013 to January 2017, Ambassador Froman served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as U.S. Trade ...
Rob Portman
ROB PORTMAN’S career in public service has spanned three decades and included service in three presidential administrations, as well as two terms in the United States Senate and six terms in the United States House of Representatives. In the George W. Bush administration, he served in two cabinet-level jobs, as Director of the Office of ...
Brian Deese
BRIAN DEESE is the Co-founder and CEO of Foundry-Logic, an energy services holding company, and an Institute Innovation Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Deese was previously Director of the White House National Economic Council from 2021-2023, where he coordinated the economic agenda of the Biden-Harris Administration and advised President Biden on domestic and ...