Alan Stuart Blinder is an American economist at Princeton University serving as the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs in the Economics Department, and vice chairman of The Observatory Group. He founded Princeton’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies in 1990. Since 1978 he has been a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a co-founder and a vice chairman of the Promontory Interfinancial Network, LLC. He is among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc, and is "considered one of the great economic minds of his generation." Blinder served on President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors (January 1993 - June 1994), and as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from June 1994 to January 1996.