Robert Ernest "Bob" Hall (born August 13, 1943) is an American economist who serves as a professor of economics at Stanford University, and as the Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is generally considered a macroeconomist, but he describes himself as an applied economist. Hall received a BA in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writing a thesis titled Essays on the Theory of Wealth under the supervision of Robert Solow. Hall is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and a member of the NBER. He has been the chairman of the Business Cycle Dating Committee, the body responsible for setting the start and end dates of U.S. economic recessions, since 1978. Hall served as President of the American Economic Association in 2010, and is a long-time member of the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity.

Ideas

Hall has a broad range of interests, including technology, competition, employment, and policy.