Keith Hall Appointed as Next CBO Director

Speculation over the next director of the Congressional Budget Office ended today as the House and Senate Budget Committees announced that Keith Hall would become the ninth director in the agency's history. He will succeed Doug Elmendorf, who has been the director since 2009, on April 1.

As a labor economist, Hall has a long history of service within the federal government and in academia. He served as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 2008 and 2012 and Chief Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers between 2005 and 2008. He also worked in the Commerce Department and is currently the chief economst for the International Trade Commission. Hall has been a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and has taught there as well as the George Washington University, Georgetown University, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Missouri.

Hall enters CBO at an interesting time, when dynamic scoring has become a hotly debated subject which could potentially impact several estimates that could come up this Congress. His background as a labor economist could mean that CBO will expand on analyses like the ones it did about the employment effect of the Affordable Care Act and raising the minimum wage.

We wish Director Hall luck in his new position when he starts in one month.