Keith Hall

Keith Hall is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Previously, Hall served as the the Director of the Congressional Budget Office and as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Before joining Mercatus, Hall was a professor at Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. From 2015-2019, Hall served as the Director of CBO. Prior to that role, Hall served as Chief Economist of the US International Trade Commission, and as a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. From 2008 to 2012 he served as the 13th Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In this role, he headed the principal fact-finding agency in the federal government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics. The BLS is an independent national statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the US Congress, other federal agencies, state and local governments, business, and labor.

Hall’s research interests include labor markets, labor market policy, and economic data.

From 2005 to 2008, Hall served as chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he analyzed a broad range of fiscal, regulatory, and macroeconomic policies and directed a team that monitored the state of the economy and developed economic forecasts. Before that, he was chief economist for the US Department of Commerce, where he provided technical advice regarding the scope, emphasis, and state of the economic and statistical activities of the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. He also served as a special advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and regularly conducted and supervised research projects on a wide range of economic and policy issues. Hall also spent 10 years at the US International Trade Commission, where, among other responsibilities, he conducted and led independent studies related to international trade and trade policy. He has been a full-time faculty member in the economics departments at the universities of Arkansas and Missouri and has published a number of papers on international trade and international trade policy.

Hall received his BA from the University of Virginia and his MS and PhD in economics from Purdue University.