Robert E. Rubin

Co-Chairman; Former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury

Robert E. Rubin joined the Clinton administration in 1993, serving in the White House as assistant to the president for economic policy and as the first director of the National Economic Council. He served as the seventieth secretary of the treasury from 1995 to 1999. From 1999 to 2009, Mr. Rubin served as a member of the board of directors at Citigroup and as a senior adviser to the company. He is co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the United States' leading community-development support organization. He serves on the board of trustees of Mount Sinai Medical Center and is a member of the Harvard Corporation. In 2006, Mr. Rubin was one of the founders of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy project housed at the Brookings Institution that offers a strategic vision and innovative policy proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans. In 2010, Mr. Rubin joined Centerview Partners as a counselor of the firm. He is author of In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington, a New York Times best seller and one of Business Week's ten best business books of the year. He is based in New York City.

Past Research Project

Publications

Op-Ed

The Fiscal Delusion

Author: Robert E. Rubin
New York Times

With the fiscal cliff looming and our current fiscal trajectory unsustainable, "We should let the Bush high-end tax cuts expire, with an achievable, progressive reduction in tax expenditures. And we should have spending cuts, including entitlement reforms, equally matched by revenue increases," says Robert E. Rubin.

See more in United States, Economics, Financial Crises

Audio

Media Conference Call: The Future of the Eurozone

Speakers: Robert E. Rubin, Sebastian Mallaby, and C. Fred Bergsten

CFR co-chair Robert Rubin; Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, C. Fred Bergsten; and Director of CFR's Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, Sebastian Mallaby discuss the bond-purchasing plan of the European Central Bank, the German constitutional court decision over the European Stability Mechanism, and the Federal Reserve's plan for additional quantitative easing.

Audio

The Global Energy Landscape (Audio)

Speakers: Carlos B. Pascual and Daniel H. Yergin
Introductory Speaker: Robert E. Rubin
Presider: Ed Crooks

Experts discuss the energy demands of emerging economies, as well as the stability of oil supply.

This meeting is the first in a series of global partnership meetings with the Financial Times.

See more in Energy/Environment

Video

The Global Energy Landscape

Speakers: Carlos B. Pascual and Daniel H. Yergin
Introductory Speaker: Robert E. Rubin
Presider: Ed Crooks

Experts discuss the energy demands of emerging economies, as well as the stability of oil supply.

This meeting is the first in a series of global partnership meetings with the Financial Times.

See more in Energy/Environment

Video

Spence: Emerging Market Investment Boom Ahead

Interviewer: Robert E. Rubin
Interviewee: A. Michael Spence

Economist A. Michael Spence says emerging market growth is going to produce a boom in investment, which in turn may lead to higher interest rates globally, and a tendency to intervene in international capital flows. Spence spoke to Robert Rubin, Former Treasury Secretary and Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, at CFR's 2011 Corporate Conference.

See more in Economics, Emerging Markets, Geoeconomics, Industrial Policy, International Finance

Audio

Pandemic Influenza: Science, Economics, and Foreign Policy: Session Two: The Economics (Audio)

Speakers: Yanzhong Huang, Andrew Jack, and Michael T. Osterholm
Presider: Robert E. Rubin

Listen to experts analyze the economic effects of pandemic influenza including on the labor force and trade.

This session was part of a CFR symposium, Pandemic Influenza: Science, Economics, and Foreign Policy, which was cosponsored with Science Magazine.

See more in Economics, Public Health Threats