Alan Stuart Blinder (/ˈblaɪndər/, born October 14, 1945) is an American economics professor at Princeton University and is listed among the most influential economists in the world.

[12] Blinder's textbook Economics: Principles and Policy, co-written with William Baumol, was first published in 1979 and, in 2012 was printed in its twelfth edition.

[15][non-primary source needed] Blinder has been critical of the public discussion of the US national debt, describing it as generally ranging from "ludicrous to horrific".

[4] As Vice Chairman, Blinder cautioned against raising interest rates too quickly to slow inflation because of the lags in earlier rises feeding through into the economy.

[17] Many have argued that Blinder's stint at the Fed was cut short because of his tendency to challenge chairman Alan Greenspan.

[citation needed] After his service as the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Blinder, along with several former regulators, founded a company that offers a number of services that provide a means for depositors (including governmental entities, nonprofits, businesses, as well as individuals such as retirees) to access millions in Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) coverage at a single institution instead of multiple ones.

[20] Blinder was an early advocate of a "Cash for Clunkers" program, in which the government buys some of the oldest, most-polluting vehicles and scraps them.

[24][25][26][27] The Great Recession started in December 2007 and bottomed-out in June 2009, at which point the U.S. economy began a slow recovery.

He writes, “After all, in the 2000s we saw several dramatic instances of risk spreads first narrowing dangerously, then skyrocketing once fear took over from greed, and then narrowing again as calm returned.”[31] For a beginning class in economics, he recommends including QE, or Quantitative Easing, as practiced by the Fed, the fact that investment bubbles can and do occur, and that “leverage is a double-edged sword.”[32] Regarding other concepts such as “Too Big To Fail,” Blinder recommends including them in advanced courses but not in introductory classes.

He thinks the early class(es) should include material which economists largely agree on, the “received wisdom” as it were, although he sees how other teachers might come to different conclusions.