LAURENCE KOTLIKOFF
Professor of Economics at Boston University
NY Times best selling co-author of Get What's Yours, as well as Money Magic, Clash of Generations, and Jimmy Stewart is Dead
Laurence Kotlikoff, ranked by the Economist as one of the world's 25 most influential economists, delivers incisive global, national, and personal economic analyses. His engaging presentations, reflecting his years of consulting with governments, international agencies, corporations, financial advisors, and individual households, offer novel and practical solutions to our manner of economic problems.
Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a William Fairfield Warren Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in economics-based financial planning software, and a Research Fellow of the Goodman Institute. Kotlikoff is also a New York Times Best Selling author. The Economist Magazine ranked Kotlikoff one of the world’s 25 most influential economists.
Professor Kotlikoff received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977. From 1977 through 1983, Kotlikoff served on the faculties of economics of the University of California, Los Angeles and Yale University. In 1981-82, Professor Kotlikoff was a Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Professor Kotlikoff’s writings and research address the national and international macroeconomic outlook, fiscal sustainability, including deficit finance, all aspects of personal finance, inequality, Social Security, reform of our tax, healthcare, and Social Security systems, Social Security, climate change, investing, and insurance. Professor Kotlikoff is author or co-author of 21 books, hundreds of professional journal articles, and a multitude of op eds and blogs. His larrykotlikoff.substack.com newsletter and podcast has tens of thousands of subscribers.
Kotlikoff's co-authored book, Social Security Horror Stories – Protect Yourself from the System and Avoid Clawbacks, as well as his company's MaximizeMySocialSecurity.com software, was featured on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper. Kotlikoff’s 2022 book, Money Magic -- An Economists’ Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life won the business journalists’ association (SABEW) award for the best book in 2022 in investing and personal finance. Get What’s Yours – the Revised Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security, co-authored with Philip Moeller and Paul Solman, is a NY Times Best Seller. Kotlikoff’s other books include The Clash of Generations, co-authored with Scott Burns, The Economic Consequences of the Vickers Commission, Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, Spend ‘Til the End, co-authored with Scott Burns, Generational Policy, The Healthcare Fix, and The Coming Generational Storm, co-authored with Scott Burns. Kotlikoff’s columns have appeared in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Hill, The Financial Times, The Times of London, Forbes, CBNC, Bloomberg, PBS NewsHour, The Dallas News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Seattle Times, Vox, Fortune, Seeking Alpha, Yahoo.com, VoxEU, Huffington Post, and other leading media outlets.
Kotlikoff has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Harvard Institute for International Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Swedish Ministry of Finance, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Government of Russia, the Government of Ukraine, the Government of Bolivia, the Government of Bulgaria, the Treasury of New Zealand, the Finance Ministry of Malta, the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Joint Committee on Taxation, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The American Council of Life Insurance, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, AT&T, AON Corp., and other major U.S. corporations.
Speech topics
Economics' Secrets to More Spending, Less Risk, and a Better Life
There's a revolution in financial planning and it's not AI. It's using iterative dynamic programming to calculate, not predict, optimal client-specific financial moves. Whether it's taking exactly the right Social Security benefits at exactly the right time or finding the exact annual Roth conversions to produce maximum tax savings, economics-based planning is an amazing game changer. Professor Kotlikoff combines the power of economic theory and his patent-winning computation methods to provide a mind-bending, money-magic show, which offers financial salvation to the financial industry.
Is America's Economic Hegemony on Its Last Leg or Regaining Its Footing?
Assessing the future of global economic power is tricky business. Productivity growth, demographic change, fiscal policy, trade restrictions, inequality, and climate change produce a complex dynamic. Professor Kotlikoff is a master at economic integrative assessment. He and co-authors have built the world's most powerful and detailed models of economic growth, combining all these factors and more -- tracking not just where we're heading but how quickly we'll get there. Models give us a picture. But they offer only partial answers to the plethora of big-time, global questions that Kotlikoff addresses: Will China and India eclipse the West? Is South Korea going extinct? Is Argentina the new old economic growth model? Is the U.S. fiscally insolvent? Will Africa's and the Middle East's population explosions overwhelm Europe? Can Europe stop Russia on its own?
Will AI Eat Our Lunch or Take Us to Dinner?
This is the economic elephant in the room. Kotlikoff reviews the economics knowns and explores the economic unknowns. He draws on a decade of advanced economic modeling and empirical analysis, including his own co-authored work, to paint two extreme pictures -- one of unbridled, if highly disruptive economic growth and one of a tech boom leading, invariably, to a tech bust with smart machines destroying so many jobs that there is no one able to buy what's produced. Kotlikoff's third picture is middle ground -- that AI's impact, notwithstanding Wall Street valuations, will be small potatoes compared with the great technological leaps forward of the past.
OTHER TOPICS
Economics-Based Financial Planning -- Finding Financial Bonanzas Under Our Noses
Social Security -- Getting What's Yours from a System With 22,000 Pages of Rules
Roth Conversions -- Go Big or Go Home
The Future of Banking If It Has One
Will AI Replace Financial Planners?
Is AI Planting the Seeds of Its Own Destruction?
The Future of Global Economic Power
The Economic Outlook -- Short- and Long-Term
Inequality -- It's Far Better and Far Worse than Everyone Thinks
Rescuing Our Country from Fiscal Insolvency
Washington's Myriad Ponzi Schemes and their Generational Consequences
Do Top Economists Have a Clue About the Economy?
Does Fed Policy Really Matter? If So, How So?
Fundamental Tax Reform -- It's Beyond Time
Are We Locking the Poor Into Poverty?
How to Equalize Education for Free
Books
Social Security Horror Stories: Protect Yourself from the System -- and Avoid Clawbacks
Learn how to make sure you get the correct Social Security benefits, avoid frightening clawbacks, and how to deal with the opaque bureaucracy of Social Security.
Money Magic: An Economist's Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life
Laurence Kotlikoff, one of our nation’s premier personal finance experts and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security, harnesses the power of economics and advanced computation to deliver a host of spellbinding but simple money magic tricks that will transform your financial future.
Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security
Get What’s Yours has proven itself to be the definitive book about how to navigate the forbidding maze of Social Security and emerge with the highest possible benefits.
The Clash of Generations: Saving Ourselves, Our Kids, and Our Economy
How America went bankrupt and how we can save ourselves—as a country and as individuals—from economic disaster.
Substack
Economics Matters
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