A Commitment to Effective Government

In 1916, Robert S. Brookings joined a group of government reformers in creating the first private organization devoted to the fact-based study of national public policy issues. The new Institute for Government Research became the chief advocate for effective and efficient public service and sought to bring “science” to the study of government.

The Brookings Institution traces its beginnings to 1916, when a group of leading reformers founded the Institute for Government Research (IGR), the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level.

Brookings created two sister organizations: the Institute of Economics in 1922 and a graduate school in 1924. In 1927, the institutes and the school merged to form the present-day Brookings Institution, with the mission to promote, conduct and foster research “in the broad fields of economics, government administration, and the political and social sciences.”

The Brookings trustees chose the organization’s first president: Harold Moulton, a University of Chicago professor who was known for his study of war debts. Brookings economists played a large role in crafting the 1921 legislation that created the first U.S. Bureau of the Budget. President Warren G. Harding called the bureau, which planned the government’s financial outlays, “the greatest reform in governmental practices since the beginning of the republic.”

War and Peace

In the World War II era, Brookings experts helped the government mobilize for the conflict and manage its aftermath. After the war ended, Leo Pasvolsky, a Brookings expert who had also served in the State Department, was instrumental in refining the blueprint for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dream of the United Nations.

Brookings also helped shape the Marshall Plan—the groundbreaking relief effort to help Europe recover from war. In 1948, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R.-MI), praised Brookings for a report that would become “the Congressional ‘work-sheet’ in respect to this complex and critical problem.” (Learn more about Brookings's role in the Marshall Plan »)

Shaping the Nation

Nearly a year before the 1960 election, Brookings governmental studies expert Laurin Henry published a study, Presidential Transitions, designed to help whichever candidate won—John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon—to launch his administration smoothly. The book was followed by a series of confidential issues papers prepared by Brookings experts and distributed to the candidates.
On September 29, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson helped mark Brookings's fiftieth anniversary with an address on public service and the importance of America's cities.

In 1971, Brookings began a new series of studies on the federal budget, providing in-depth analysis of various programs that helped inform the public and sharpen the spending choices for Congress. Three years later, Brookings pushed for the creation of the Congressional Budget Office. Alice Rivlin, a distinguished Brookings economist, was the CBO’s first director.

Economic Growth

Joseph Pechman, director of the Economic Studies program at Brookings, pushed hard for comprehensive reform of the U.S. tax code in the early 1980s. His research led to the Tax Reform Act of 1986—a major bill that had a profound impact on the U.S. economy.

In the 1990s, the federal government devolved many of its social programs back to cities and states, and Brookings shaped a new generation of urban policies to help build strong neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions. As President Bill Clinton prepared to sign historic welfare reform legislation, experts at Brookings teamed up to study the nation’s policies on children and families. In 2001, a Brookings proposal for a child tax credit became part of major tax legislation.

The ongoing effort to improve the tax system also benefited from work by Brookings economists Bill Gale and Mark Iwry. These experts argued that the key to helping Americans save for retirement was making a tax incentive refundable in order to help lower-income workers. The legislation they inspired has helped make them two of the most-quoted, and most influential, economists in the United States.

A Global Challenge

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, increased the urgency of developing strategies to address the threat while sustaining America’s role as a force for prosperity and stability abroad and an open society at home. With remarkable speed, Brookings experts produced influential proposals for homeland security and intelligence operations. They also testified before Congress and used the Institution’s outreach capacity, including its in-house television studio, to explain the new global reality to a frightened public.

Brookings Presidents

Strobe Talbott (2002 - present)
Michael Armacost (1995 - 2002)
Bruce MacLaury (1977 - 1995)
Kermit Gordon (1967 - 1977)
Robert Calkins (1952 - 1967)
Harold Moulton (1927 - 1952)