William (Bill) Gale, 2026 Holland Medal Recipient

The Daniel M. Holland Medal was created in 1993 in the memory of Daniel Holland, a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and long-time editor of the National Tax Journal. The Holland Medal, the most prestigious award given by the National Tax Association, recognizes lifetime achievement in the study of the theory and practice of public finance.

This year’s winner of the Holland Medal is William (Bill) Gale. Gale is the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. His research has focused on numerous aspects of tax policy, fiscal policy, and retirement accounts and saving behavior.

He is the author or co-author of more than 300 articles, including publications in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the National Tax Journal, and several other field journals. He is the author of Fiscal Therapy: Curing America’s Addiction to Debt and Investing in the Future (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of several books, with topics ranging from saving and retirement policy to fundamental tax reform to the estate tax. In 2007, a paper he co-authored was awarded the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award Certificate of Excellence. He has testified more than 30 times in Congress and has written extensively in policy-related publications and newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

He is a co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, where he served as co-director from 2002 to 2025. He served as the Director of the Retirement Security Project at Brookings from 2007 to 2023. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Vice President of Brookings and Director of the Economic Studies Program. Prior to joining Brookings in 1992, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush. He served as President of the National Tax Association in 2019-2020.

Gale received a bachelor’s degree from Duke University, attended the London School of Economics as an undergraduate, and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987. In 2022-2024, he served as the President of the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia, is an avid tennis player, and is a person who stutters. He and his wife Diane Lim delight in their children, grandchildren, dogs, and cats.