Crypto: How Real is the Promise of Financial Inclusion?

Aaron Klein is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, focused on financial technology and regulation; payments; macroeconomics; and infrastructure finance and policy. Prior to joining Brookings in 2016, he directed the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative.

Between 2009 and 2012, Klein served as the deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of Treasury. He worked on financial regulatory reform issues including crafting and helping secure passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. He also played leading roles on responding to the economic crisis, housing finance reform, transportation and infrastructure policy, and Native American policy.

Previously, Klein served as chief economist of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee for Chairmen Chris Dodd and Paul Sarbanes. He worked on numerous pieces of major legislation, including the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (aka TARP), Housing and Economic Recovery Act, and the SAFETEA Act of 2005—re-writing America’s surface transportation system.

Klein teaches at the Wharton school of Business and serves as an external economist for the National Homebuyers Fund. 

Klein is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.