James K. Galbraith

Distinguished Fellow, Class of 2023

James K. Galbraith is the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a professorship in Government at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, Dr. Galbraith was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress in the early 1980s, and prior to that, worked as an economist for the House Banking Committee. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security from 1996 to 2016 and directs The University of Texas Inequality Project. He is also a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

Dr. Galbraith’s economic research interests include inequality, development, and social policy. His accolades and roles are numerous and far-flung: From 1993 to 1997 Galbraith served as chief technical adviser for Macroeconomic Reform to the State Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China. In 2010, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2014 he was co-winner of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economics. In 2020 he received the Veblen-Commons Award of the Association for Evolutionary Economics. A Marshall Scholar, Dr. Galbraith is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Texas Philosophical Society; and a member of the Free Economic Society, an organization of economists in Russia. His most recent books, both published in 2016, are Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe and Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know.