[3] He currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative and serves as a senior advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group.

Baily was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (1979–89) and subsequently professor of economics at the University of Maryland (1989–96).

Baily co-founded the microeconomics issues of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

He joined the board of The Phoenix Companies in 2005 and is an academic adviser to the Congressional Budget Office and associate editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

He is the author of numerous books and articles and coauthor with Jacob Kirkegaard of Transforming the European Economy (2004).