Kevin A. Hassett is an American economist who has been a prominent conservative policy adviser, academic, and public commentator. He earned a B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and served on the faculty at Columbia Business School before joining the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Research and Statistics in the 1990s[4][5]. He later became a long-time scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and held fellowships at the Hoover Institution[5][6]. Hassett served as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 to 2019, where he was a central architect and public advocate of the 2017 corporate tax cut and related supply-side policy arguments[1][5]. He returned to the Trump White House as a senior economic adviser during the COVID-19 period and was appointed Director of the National Economic Council in early 2025, placing him at the center of economic policy planning for the Trump administration[1][6]. Over his career he has advised multiple presidential campaigns, including those of John McCain, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney[1][5]. Hassett is also known as a public intellectual and author; he coauthored the 1999 book Dow 36,000, which drew wide attention for its bullish stock-market forecast, and has been a regular columnist and media commentator on economic issues[1][5]. His policy positions emphasize tax cuts, deregulation, and policies intended to boost investment and productivity, and he has advocated immigration rules favoring highly skilled workers while arguing for pro-growth fiscal measures[1][6]. In recent years Hassett returned to high-profile government service as National Economic Council director (2025) and has remained a visible defender of the administration’s economic agenda, drawing both support from conservative allies and scrutiny from critics over his policy claims and public statements[6][7].