Kenneth Saul "Ken" Rogoff is an American economist and chess Grandmaster. Born on March 22, 1953, in Rochester, New York, he is currently the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
Rogoff's career highlights include serving as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He was also the Chief Economist at the IMF from August 2001 to September 2003. His interests in research include international finance, monetary theory, and macroeconomics.
In terms of his contribution to chess, Rogoff became a chess Grandmaster in 1978. He won the United States Junior Championship in 1969 and spent several years living in Europe and playing in national team championships. Rogoff ultimately decided to pursue a career in economics because he felt that he had more innovative contributions to make in this field than in chess. However, his experience in the chess world had a profound influence on his approach to economics.
Rogoff did his undergraduate studies at Yale University and later earned a Ph.D. from MIT in 1980. His doctoral advisors were Rüdiger Dornbusch and Stanley Fischer. His contributions to the field of economics have earned him several honors. His works on exchange rates and on central bank independence are commonly cited.
Rogoff is also known for his 2009 book, "This Time is Different", co-authored with Carmen Reinhart. This best-selling book provides a quantitative history of financial crises dating back 800 years and is considered a classic. His 2016 book, "The Curse of Cash" argues for drastically reducing the amount of physical cash in circulation, in order to combat tax evasion, corruption, and various types of crime.
Rogoff is married to Natasha Lance Rogoff, a former producer for Sesame Street, with whom he has two children.