Dr. Paul Winfree is an economist and a trusted public policy advisor. He has served in top management and policy roles in the White House, the US Senate, and in think tanks.
Winfree is President and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center in Washington, DC. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Queen’s University Centre for Economic History at Queen’s University Belfast, and is an Advisor at the Centre for Economics, Policy and History at Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast.
Winfree’s research focuses on US economic history, public finance, the political economy, the economics of media, and the economics of education. He is author of a book on the evolution of economic and fiscal policy from colonial America until the present called The History (and Future) of the Budget Process in the United States: Budget by Fire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
He was the Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership at The Heritage Foundation. From 2015-2016 and 2018-2022, he was Director of Economic Policy Studies and the Richard F. Aster Fellow at Heritage. He also served as acting Director of the Center for Data Analysis at Heritage in 2016 and from 2021-2022.
Winfree was also Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, a 12-member board selected by the President of the United States, that oversees the Fulbright program and other educational exchanges sponsored by the US Department of State. During Winfree’s three terms as Fulbright Board Chair, he established a number of partnerships with universities and other research institutions. These included new initiatives between Fulbright, the US National Archives, and the US National Park Service that expanded scholarship related to cultural, historical, and environmental conservation. In 2022, he received a distinguished service award from the US State Department’s Bureau of Education and Culture Affairs for his “stewardship during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for meaningful contributions to advance mutual understanding through the Fulbright Program.”
Before rejoining Heritage in 2018, Winfree was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, the Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and the Director of Budget Policy, all at the White House. Winfree was also Chair of the Deputies Committee that oversaw the execution of all domestic policy at the Deputy Secretary level throughout the administration as well as the interagency policy coordination process. During the 2016 Presidential Transition, Winfree led the team responsible for the Office of Management and Budget.
In addition to his other research, Winfree has published on topics related to health economics and economic mobility. In 2008, he coauthored a book on the determinants of economic mobility in America that was published by the Pew Charitable Trusts. He has also developed a health insurance microsimulation model that has been used extensively by analysts at Heritage to estimate how changes in federal health policy affect federal budgetary outcomes.
His research has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, and Congressional Quarterly, among other publications.
Winfree holds a Ph.D. in economics from Queen’s University Belfast, a M.Sc. in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.S. in economics from George Mason University.