Alumnus Was Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury
The Fletcher School welcomed Jay Shambaugh, F97, to campus on September 11, 2026, where he delivered keynote remarks at the annual academic Convocation and received the Class of 1947 Memorial Award.
Shambaugh is former Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury, a position he held from 2022 to 2025. Prior to that he served in roles as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the CEA’s chief economist, and director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings Institution, which is a D.C.-based non-profit public policy organization. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a professor of economics and international affairs at The George Washington University.
Ahead of the ceremony, Shambaugh discussed his career journey, his experience at Fletcher, key global challenges he faced while at the CEA and Treasury, and advice for students. His experience shows the complexity of international affairs and importance of an interdisciplinary education to address global challenges.
The Fletcher School: Did you have much of a background in economics as an undergraduate?
Jay Shambaugh: I had a little bit. I was an ethics politics and economics major, so as an undergraduate I took economics classes along with political economy, political science, ethics, and philosophy. My academic background was mixed before I got to Fletcher.
How did you become interested in economics while at Fletcher?
I was really interested in international economics and international policy. I thought I would come to Fletcher to learn more about international affairs and then work in the policy world. When I got here, I took economics classes, including a number of courses with current Professor Michael Klein. I realized that it was the area I was most interested—I liked doing research and teaching. I was a teaching assistant for Professor Klein. To work in academia I knew I needed to go on and get a PhD.
What interested you in international affairs and international policy?
I watched times when policy changes happened, markets cascaded, and the economy shifted. I was fascinated by the notion of watching countries decide to either fix or unfix their exchange rate and how all of a sudden the whole world shifted for the people in those countries—and as countries discussed a common currency. The policy questions, to me, seemed fascinating.
I am very unusual as an American economist raised in the United States. Most Americans don’t think about exchange rates. Many of the top exchange rate economists in the world come from countries that went through exchange rate problems when they were kids; these experiences made them want to learn about it. For me, I observed exchange rate problems in countries and the impact of policy choices and was always curious about them.
How did your studies here at Fletcher prepare you for your career in economics first as a professor and then in the government?
It really evolved in two ways. First, I prepared for my career while at Fletcher with classwork in economics. I took classes to deepen my knowledge. Whether basic econometrics or quantitative methods or similar, I took classes that would skill me up so I was prepared to pursue a PhD. I also took field classes in economics, and relative to my peers when I entered the PhD program, this gave me a fairly strong idea of topics that interested me for research for my PhD.
The second part to my preparation was learning the breadth of international affairs. When I got to the policy world, especially my job at the Treasury Department, it involved a lot of diplomacy rather than just economics. My Fletcher education gave me confidence. When I saw some fellow academics at a conference while I was at Treasury, they asked me what I was doing, what the job was like. One of them said that they didn’t feel remotely qualified to do the things I was doing. I realized that part of the reason was that I had been in different government roles and got some experience, but also part of it was coming out of Fletcher and having a wide grounding in legal, political economy, cultural, and history issues. I had a strong enough background across a wide range of classes that made me more confident to do these things than just having a PhD in economics.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when you served on the Council of Economic Advisors, and when you were Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury? How did you address these challenges?
From 2009 to 2011 when I was at the CEA, the United States was still feeling the hangover of the global financial crisis—the world economy was freefalling. When I came back as a Member of the White House Council of the CEA in 2015, there was the concern that the economy was still growing too slowly—people didn’t feel their living standards were where they wanted them to be. It was difficult to figure out the levers to address this—the economy was not recovering from the recessions; it was out of the recessions, so how do you continue to move things forward? The challenge was to figure out both the path the economy was on for a forecast perspective but also what policy options were available, and that was tricky.
At Treasury, the role was mostly international. It focused on trying to think through the big challenges the world was facing. Here are some of those challenges.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a technical and diplomatic challenge. How do you martial fiscal resources from around the world to support Ukraine? We put together an IMF program with enough support from different countries to make sure that Ukraine could continue to defend its sovereignty against Russia’s invasion. This huge issue involved a lot of diplomacy with other countries on policy, IMF policy, and navigating a wide range of opinions to determine the right path to take. Trying to narrow down and figure out a path was challenging and we had to become more and more creative, especially over time, on what routes were available, like using the return on Russia’s assets to mobilize resources.
The U.S.’s relationship with China was one of the biggest challenges and I am proud of what we did. When I joined the Treasury, the U.S. and China were not talking very much. It was a time when we were coming out of a trade war and the first Trump administration. There was limited contact between the countries. We did work to try to rebuild some level of trust in the relationship and get to a point where we could work together, knowing that at times we would have different interests and were going to disagree. That was hard. I was fortunate to have a counterpart in China who I met with often and we worked together productively. Part of that was establishing communication; me calling him to let him know we were going to do something so they would be aware even though China would not like it, and vice versa. The issues were challenging such as Chinese industrial policy and the country’s views on various actions that the U.S. was taking, and what we thought we needed to do for our own economic or national security. There were also disagreements within the United States about the appropriate policy path.
Another challenge was the finance environment for low-income countries; it really shifted in the year or two before I joined the Treasury. A number of countries were in default or heading to default. We knew these countries would not pay all of the money back, but they would pay some of it. The question became: who would they pay back, on what terms, and how much. Getting to those agreements can be really hard as it involves the private sector, different governments, and a whole range of opinions. China had become a big lender but had not really gone through defaults before— it was new for them and they were struggling, requiring a lot of diplomatic work.
There was another issue beyond countries in default; money wasn’t really flowing towards these countries anymore. In fact, more was flowing back out in debt repayments than flowing in. Poor countries shouldn’t be sending money out. To address, we worked towards better systems within the IMF and World Bank. Unfortunately, we needed more time to continue progress for this effort. The administration changed and the world shifted to a trade war and a focus on that. Even so, I view this as one of the trickier issues, one that was important, and one the world is still grappling with.
The last challenge I’d like to mention is the question of economic security and how economic security interacts with economic policy. This is when actions are knowingly not good economics. Rather, they are necessary actions for national security. These can become difficult nettlesome questions. You can run your models to determine the cost benefit and actions to take, but when you start adding in things that are harder to quantify around national security, the policy questions get hard.
What advice would you give Fletcher students who are interested in pursuing careers in international economics in the private sector, NGOs, or in a government capacity?
I advise students to use their time at Fletcher to build expertise with skills and a background in an area with context and develop it throughout their career. For example, if you are interested in international economic policy, take more economics classes. You don’t have to become a PhD economist but you do need to understand what the PhD economist is thinking and understand enough that when a policy question comes up you have some framework and understanding of the way it works.
Having baseline comfort with data and how to manipulate data are important skills. Also, learn to write. Even if you think your machine can write for you, it cannot think for you in the ways you need to be creative. Honestly, especially in international policy, there are often security questions and machines that connect to the outside world are not allowed. You need to be able to write and think and present an argument clearly.
Also, be good at something you like. I do not mean pursue your passion as much as I mean develop something you are particularly good at so when you are working in government people think of you for that expertise. They want you in the room because you have a lot of knowledge on the topic or are good at the needed skill. Over time people will keep wanting to bring you around the policy questions. Then, once you are in the room, you must have confidence and an opinion. You have to say something. Getting there involves developing the skills and context so you become the expert they want around.
What is your fondest memory of your years at Fletcher?
My fondest memory of Fletcher is definitely centered around the people. I met amazing people here, many of whom I am still in contact. Just the events in the evenings or getting together on the weekends. The people at Fletcher are from all over the world with such varied backgrounds, including those from the same country as you who have done very different things. I learned so much in the classroom as well as outside of the classroom from the people. I think Fletcher is a special place and special community. I have maintained close contact with many members, including professors as friends, mentors, co-authors. My Fletcher experience has stayed with me in my professional life and I made many friends who I really enjoyed and got to learn a lot from.
Learn about Fletcher’s Master of Science in International Economics.