James M. Poterba Named New CREF Trustee
New York, April 04, 2006
TIAA-CREF, the leading provider of retirement savings products and services in the academic, medical and cultural fields, today announced the appointment of James M. Poterba, MIT Professor of Economics, to the CREF Board of Trustees.
"We are honored and delighted that Dr. Poterba has joined the CREF Board of Trustees," said Herb Allison, chief executive of TIAA-CREF. "TIAA-CREF is dedicated to helping individuals meet their retirement savings goals, and Dr. Poterba’s understanding of the effect of taxation on people’s financial behavior and saving decisions make him a highly valued participant in those efforts."
"Dr. Poterba is a strong addition to the independent CREF Board," said CREF Board Chair Dr. Nancy Jacob. "His expertise brings yet another dimension to our diverse body that helps fulfill our obligation to protect the interest of our shareholders."
James Poterba is the Mitsui Professor of Economics and the Associate Head of the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1982. He is also the Director of the Public Economics Research Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. He has served as a Director of the American Finance Association and as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association.
Dr. Poterba’s research focuses on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms. His recent work has emphasized the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. He has been especially interested in the analysis of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans and in the role of annuities in financing retirement consumption. Dr. Poterba recently served as a member of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. He is a former member of the MIT 401(k) Plan Oversight Committee.
Dr. Poterba edits the Journal of Public Economics, the leading international journal for research on taxation and government spending, and is a member of the advisory boards of the Journal of Wealth Management. He is a co-author of The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement (2001), and an editor or co-editor of Global Warming: Economic Policy Responses (1991), International Comparisons of Household Saving (1994), Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation (1996), and Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance (1999).
Dr. Poterba studied Economics as an undergraduate at Harvard, and received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, a Batterymarch Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The CREF Board of Trustees exercises supervision over CREF management. The CREF board consists entirely of independent trustees -- people who are not executive officers or former employees of TIAA or CREF. Trustees are elected directly by CREF shareholders each year at CREF annual meeting. Dr. Poterba’s board service will begin on April 3.
About TIAA-CREF
TIAA-CREF is a national financial services organization and the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. With more than $370 billion in combined assets under management (12/31/05), TIAA-CREF is ranked one of Fortune magazine’s 100 largest U.S. companies (April 2005). Further information can be found at www.tiaa-cref.org.
