Dr. Paul Winfree is an economist, executive, and policymaker whose work focuses on macroeconomic policy, economic growth, public finance, and the institutions that shape monetary and fiscal policy. He currently serves as Special Adviser to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Over more than two decades, Winfree has worked at the intersection of research and policy. He has advised senior decision makers at the White House, Congress, and the Federal Reserve, and led organizations engaged in the central questions facing the U.S. economy.
Before joining the Federal Reserve, Winfree founded the Economic Policy Innovation Center and served as its President and CEO. Under his leadership, EPIC rapidly became one of Washington’s most influential institutions on federal fiscal policy — outpacing far larger and longer-established organizations despite launching in 2023 — and Winfree’s analysis directly shaped major federal budget and tax legislation.
Winfree previously served in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Director of Budget Policy, helping develop and coordinate policy across the federal government. Earlier in his career, he served as a policy director on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.
He has also held senior research and leadership positions at The Heritage Foundation, including Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership, Director of Economic Policy Studies, Richard F. Aster Fellow, and acting Director of the Center for Data Analysis, Heritage’s econometric modeling and quantitative research unit.
Winfree maintains an active research agenda in macroeconomics, public finance, political economy, and economic history. His current work examines the consequences of fiscal and monetary institutions, the sustainability of public debt, the determinants of long-run growth, and the development of the American political economy. His academic affiliations include the Queen’s University Centre for Economic History (Queen’s University Belfast) and the Centre for Economics, Policy and History (Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast).
Winfree is the author of The History (and Future) of the Budget Process in the United States: Budget by Fire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). The book traces how the constitutional power of the purse became a 230 year contest between Congress and the Presidency, argues that the modern budget process has effectively broken down, and sets out reforms to repair it. Its account of how fiscal institutions are forged in crisis and then decay as they cease to adapt, growing ever less matched to present conditions, bears directly on the dynamics confronting economic policy today. He has testified repeatedly before Congress, and his research and commentary have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, and Congressional Quarterly, among other outlets.
Winfree’s leadership has extended beyond economic policy. Appointed by President Trump, he chaired the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for three terms. In 2022, he received a distinguished service award from the U.S. Department of State for his stewardship during the COVID-19 pandemic and for advancing cultural and educational exchange.
Winfree holds a Ph.D. in economics from Queen’s University Belfast, an M.Sc. in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.S. in economics from George Mason University.