Timeline of Brookings Institution

This is a timeline of Brookings Institution, a United States group which conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and economic development.

Big picture

Time period	Development summary
1970s	Throughout the decade, Brookings is offered more federal research contracts than it can handle.
1980s	Brookings is exposed to increasingly competitive and ideologically charged intellectual environment. The need to reduce the federal budget deficit becomes a major research theme in the 1980s, as well as investigating problems with national security and government inefficiency. The Center for Public Policy Education is established to develop workshop conferences and public forums to broaden the audience for research programs.
1990s	"In the 1990s, the federal government devolved many of its social programs back to cities and states, and Brookings shaped a new generation of urban policies to help build strong neighborhoods, cities and metropolitan regions."
2010s	The University of Pennsylvania's Global Go To Think Tank Index Report names Brookings "Think Tank of the Year" and "Top Think Tank in the World" every year since 2008.

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
1916			In Washington, D.C. a group of leading educators, businessmen, attorneys, and financiers, including businessman and philanthropist Robert S. Brookings, found the Institute for Government Research (IGR), with the mission of becoming "the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level." IGR becomes the first private organization devoted to bettering the practices and performance of government with recommendations generated by outside experts. Its first research project, directed by economist William Willoughby, focuses on helping the Bureau of Internal Revenue revise the reporting of tax statistics for greater accuracy.
1917			Robert Brookings is appointed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to the War Industries Board, a government agency which coordinates the purchase of military supplies. Later, Brookings is made chairman of the board’s Price Fixing Committee, to discourage profiteering.
1919			IGR publishes A National Budget System: the Most Important of all Governmental Reconstruction Measures.
1921			Landmark legislation Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 is crafted and passed with the lead of IGR recommendations. The legislation expands executive power in the federal budget process. President Warren Harding calls it “the beginning of the greatest reform in governmental practices since the beginning of the republic.”
1922			IGR establishes the Institute of Economics, for the “sole purpose of ascertaining the facts about current economic problems and of interpreting these facts for the people of the United States.” Chicago University economist Harold G. Moulton is named its director.
1923			"Harold Moulton and staff economist Constantine McGuire write of post-Great War Europe that “the reparation situation has gone from very bad to worse.” In their reports they study the ability of Germany and its allies on the losing side of World War I to pay the debts mandated by the Versailles Treaty."
1923			IGR partners with Washington University in St. Louis to provide training in public service and establish the Robert S. Brookings Institute of Economics and Government for Teaching and Research (later the Robert S. Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government). Between 1924 and 1930, 74 PhDs would be awarded by the school.
1927			IGR merges with its recenlty created sister organizations, the Institute of Economics and the Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government, to form the Brookings Institution, named after Robert Brookings in recognition of his services to all three organizations. Its mission: “to promote, carry on, conduct and foster scientific research, education, training and publication in the broad fields of economics, government administration and the political and social sciences generally.”
1927		Leadership	The Brookings Trustees choose their first president: American economist Harold G. Moulton, who was previously director of the Institute of Economics and a member of the boards of the Graduate School and the Institute for Government Research.
1928			United States Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work commissions IGR’s Lewis Meriam to undertake a comprehensive survey of the condition of Native Americans. The resulting report, titled The Problem of Indian Administration (known as Meriam Report) becomes influential in shaping American Indian affairs policies in the Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations.
1928		Institutional	Brookings begins its own in-house publishing division, which precedes the Brookings Institution Press.
1932		Leadership	Robert Brookings dies in Washington, D.C. at the age of 82. His book The Way Forward is published just before his death, in which Brookings calls for the more equal distribution of wealth.
1934		Literature	The Brookings Institution publishes the two first volumes of the four works titled The Distribution of Wealth and Income in Relation to Economic Progress (informally known as the “capacity studies”). The first volume is entitled America’s Capacity to Produce, the second, and the second America’s Capacity to Consume. The works focus on production and consumption capacity, capital, and market speculation in the 1920s. These studies would become a major guide to the United States economy for policymakers for much of the decade.
1935		Literature	The Brookings Institution publishes the two last volumes of the four works titled The Distribution of Wealth and Income in Relation to Economic Progress: The Formation of Capital and 'Income and Economic Progress. These two volumes are authored by Harold G. Moulton alone.
1935			The brookings institution publishes a detailed analysis of the National Recovery Administration NRA, which was established by president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The authors conclude that the NRA impeded economy recovery after the Depression.
1939			The Brookings Institution publishes Reorganization of the National Government—What Does it Involve?, in which scholars and Lewis Meriam and Laurence F. Schmeckebier shed light on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Reorganization Act of 1939, which permitted the president to reorganize certain aspects of the executive branch and created the Executive Office of the President.
1939		Assistance	World War II begins. Brookings experts recommend policies on a variety of issues, including wartime price controls, military mobilization, German and U.S. manpower requirements, and later, postwar demobilization and preventing Germany and Japan from re-arming.
1941			A study by scholar Laurence Schmeckebier at Brookings Institution develops the system of apportioning congressional representation among the states that would become embodied in the Congressional Apportionment Act of 1911.
1941			The United States enter into World War II. Brookings researchers turn their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization.
1944			The Brookings Institution publishes a study by Joseph Mayer on Post-War National Income, Its Probably Magnitude.
1946			Economist Leo Pasvolsky becomes first director of the International Studies Group at Brookings, which conducts research and education in international relations and is the precursor to what would become the Foreign Policy program at Brookings.
1947			Brookings scholars conduct a study of compulsory health insurance, which concludes that a national health insurance program would be too political, too expensive, and too detrimental to the nation’s economic health. Two proposals emerge: grants-in-aid to states that will ensure quality medical attention for those who need it; and the formation of a compulsory health insurance program by the national government.
1948			The Brookings Institution is asked by the United States Government to draft a proposal on how to manage the European Recovery Program Marshall Plan. The resulting organization scheme assures that the Marshall Plan is run carefully and on a businesslike basis. Brookings experts play a pivotal role in the development of the program, providing valuable recommendations on the administrative organization.
1948			"In 1948, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), praised Brookings for a report that would become “the Congressional ‘work-sheet’ in respect to this complex and critical problem.”"
1949			"Brookings experts conduct research that forms the basis of a task force report on public welfare, prepared for the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, also known as the Hoover Commission."
1949			"Brookings scholars Charles Dearing and Wilfred Owen publish “National Transportation Policy,” recommending the creation of a new department of transportation headed by a new cabinet secretary. In the 1950s, Owen continued to write about the nation’s infrastructure and transportation inefficiencies." "The Transportation report was contracted to the Brookings Institution and was prepared by their in-house transportation experts, Charles Dearing and Wilfred Owen. The report recommended the establishment of a new, Cabinet-level Department of Transportation."
1950			Scholars Lewis Meriam and Karl Schlotterbeck at Brookings publish The Cost and Financing of Social Security, which weighs in on legislation to change social security programs, arguing for a pay-as-you-go system.
1952			Economist and educator Robert Calkins becomes the second president of the Brookings Institution.
1952			The Brookings Institution conducts a landmark study of share ownership on behalf of the New York Stock Exchange. The survey shows that 6.5 million Americans (4 percent of the overall population), own stock directly.
1953			"Shortly before his death in 1953, Leo Pasvolsky initiates a series of studies on the United Nations that looked at the features of the UN system to provide a better public understanding of its capabilities and limitations. The studies were published after his death under the direction of Robert Hartley, who succeeded Pasvolsky."
1954			The Brookings Institution publishes Industrial Pensions by Charles L. Dearing, the research for which was begun shortly after the Inland Steel Company decision in 1949, which made pensions a bargainable subject under the Taft–Hartley Act. The study includes a survey as of 1950 of the plans of 412 companies employing 4,000,000 workers, reflecting costs and funding arrangements as well as benefit features.
1957			"1957. Birth of Executive Education at Brookings. institutional milestone. Brookings President Robert Calkins spearheads a new program of education for senior government executives. The program contributes to passage of the Federal Training Act of 1958 that provides across-the-board federal employee training to improve government productivity. In 1962, the program is renamed the Advanced Study program, forerunner of today’s Brookings Executive Education, which continues to offer courses for federal employees on critical issues, the policymaking process, and public leadership."
1957			Brookings headquarters move from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
1959			Marshall Robinson at Brookings publishes The National Debt Ceiling: An Experiment in Fiscal Policy, which argues that the debt ceiling has not only failed, but backfired. The study would be quoted in congressional debates during the 1960s, and again in 2013.
1960			"1960. A New Home for Brookings. institutional milestone. After the federal government uses eminent domain in 1957 to take over Brookings’s Jackson Place headquarters, which it has occupied since 1931, the Institution builds a new headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue, just east of Dupont Circle."
1960			"Smoothing the Transition between Administrations. Ahead of the 1960 presidential election, Brookings scholar Laurin Henry leads the Presidential Transitions project to help the winning presidential candidate—either John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon—launch his administration smoothly. The book is followed by a series of confidential issues papers prepared by Brookings experts."
1960			The Brookings Institution makes its second major study of overseas operations.
1960			The Brookings Institution begins a four-year program with the Ford Foundation and the Government of South Vietnam to provide assistance in tax policy, fiscal policy, and economic planning to the national government in Saigon down to provinces and villages.
1960			Brookings experts publish Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, preparing a report for NASA and giving advice to the New Space Program. The authors make dozens of recommendations for additional studies on the social, economic, political, legal, and international implications of the use of space.
1960			Brookings governmental studies expert Laurin L. Henry publishes Presidential Transitions, designed to help the winning candidate (John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon) launch his administration smoothly. The book is followed by a series of confidential issues papers prepared by Brookings experts.
1962			Brookings scholar John Lewis publishes The Quiet Crisis in India, which studies India's rural development. Lewis makes the case for aid to India and the developing world as a component of U.S. foreign policy.
1961			The Brookings Institution publishes a book by American economist Alice Rivlin entitled The Role of the Federal Government in Financing Higher Education.
1963			"Economic Integration in Latin America. Brookings Foreign Policy and Governmental Studies programs, in conjunction with several Latin American research organizations, coordinate a program of studies on trade and investment policies in Latin America that lasts into the early 1980s. The program is said to have strengthened the economics profession in Latin America."
1963			The Brookings Institution in Washington holds a conference on "quantitative planning of economic policy". Speakers (which in clude Dutch and French representatives) present their models.
1963			The Brookings Institution advocates a shared federal library storage facility in its report Federal Departmental Libraries: A Summary Report of a Survey and a Conference. The authors suggest that such a facility could be a “cheap storage building, perhaps in a mountainside near Washington”. Major federal libraries would contribute to the management and administration on a cooperative basis, and requested materials would be delivered within a day. The imagined facility would maintain brief catalog entries that would be provided to cooperating libraries.
1965			"1965. Death of Mrs. Brookings, Key Supporter. Isabel Vallé January Brookings, wife of Robert S. Brookings, dies on April 7, aged 89, and leaves the Institution an $8 million bequest. She was a dedicated supporter of the Brookings Institution, having also contributed money to build Brookings’s building on Lafayette Square near the White House."
1965			The Brookings Institution creates a task force to study bankruptcy administration.
1965			The Brookings Institution holds a conference to address the major problems of intergovernmental finance and to propose solutions to those problems.
1966			The Brookings Institution enters the compuer age by establishing the Social Science Computation Center for Research, which offers computational research support for scholars, including use of a mainframe computer.
1966			The Brookings Institution publishes a book by Charles Frankel entitled The Neglected Aspect of Foreign Affairs. Frankel argues that “in comparison with the sophisticated analysis devoted to U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic policy, little intellectual attention has been given to international cultural exchange”.
1967			Kermit Gordon. "1967. Third President Hails from Budget Bureau. In 1967, Kermit Gordon becomes the third president of Brookings. Prior to his tenure at Brookings, he served as the director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations."
1967			The Brookings Institution launches a major initiative on the economic impact of regulation, backed by US$1.8 million from the Ford Foundation and directed by a panel that includes George Stigler.
1968			"1968. Agenda for the Nation. Brookings publishes the first in a series of “Agenda for the Nation” volumes, which are collections of papers on domestic and foreign policy issues. In 1970, a pair of reviews appear: one by former Vice President Hubert Humphrey —then a professor at the University of Minnesota—and another by current Vice President Spiro Agnew. “In ‘Agenda for the Nation,’” writes Humphrey, “the Brookings Institution has once again been of substantial assistance.” Agnew writes that the volume’s authors and others “who are assisting the contemporary search for improved governmental machinery and for a clarification of goals and priorities, must be considered to be an indispensable part of our governmental process.”"
1969			"1969. Cold War Defense Analyses. Under the leadership of Kermit Gordon and Foreign Policy Program Director Henry Owen, Brookings establishes the Defense Analysis Project to study issues such as defense support costs and U.S., NATO, and Soviet force structures. Work from the project is influential among congressional decision-makers."
1970			"1970. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. landmark research. Brookings scholars Arthur Okun and George Perry introduce the first edition of the “Brookings Papers on Economic Activity,” which remains a highly influential and respected economics journal."
1971			"1971. Creation of the Congressional Budget Office. Brookings experts begin a new series of studies on the federal budget and congressional spending choices, which eventually lead to the creation of the Congressional Budget Office; Brookings scholar Alice Rivlin becomes the founding director of the CBO in 1975."
1971			"Setting National Priorities. Brookings releases the first report in the highly acclaimed and influential “Setting National Priorities” series, a cross-program initiative focused on evaluating annual White House budgets as they are released and examining the domestic and foreign policy choices that confront the U.S. The report is published annually from 1971 -1983 and then in 1990, 1997, and 1999."
1971			"“Blow the safe and get it!” “Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it,” President Richard Nixon says to aides on June 17, believing that a safe in a Brookings office contains a copy of secret files on the 1968 Vietnam bombing halt that Nixon believed he could use to blackmail former President Johnson with. The files are not at Brookings. Legend holds that Brookings security guard Roderick Warren turns away two suspicious men who attempt to get into the building."
1973			The Brookings Institution holds a conference on variation of the Head Start program (launched in 1965) and presents a program for planned variation studies development.
1974			The Brookings Institution declares that the after-tax profit rate for United States corporations has fallen since 1948, from just under eight percent to just under five percent.
1975			The Brookings Institution publishes a little book by Arthur Okun entitled Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, which would consideded a classic in its field. The book explores “the big tradeoff” between society’s desire to reduce inequality and the risk of impairing economic efficiency. It also examines how redistributing income affects economic growth.
1975			"Middle East Study Group Recommendations. Following the fourth war between Arab states and Israel in 1973, Brookings releases recommendations of the Middle East Study Group, a diverse assembly of distinguished Americans tasked with considering how the U.S. might help in the achievement of a workable, fair, and enduring settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict."
1976			Gilbert Y. Steiner.
1976			"1976. Organizing the Presidency. Brookings scholar Stephen Hess, a former White House staff member, publishes “Organizing the Presidency.” In it, he conducts an examination of how various presidents have organized their offices and staff and sheds light on how the presidency has become an institution unto itself."
1976			The Brookings Institution publishes Asia's New Giant, an extensive analysis by a team of US and Japanese social scientists that explains Japan's extraordinary economic performance over the previous twenty-five years.
1977			Bruce MacLaury. "Fourth President Comes to Brookings. The Board of Trustees names Bruce MacLaury the fourth president of Brookings. Before coming to Brookings, he served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis." "Fourth President Comes to Brookings. The Board of Trustees names Bruce MacLaury the fourth president of Brookings. Before coming to Brookings, he served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis."
1977			"1977. Studies on Soviet Military Power. In 1977 and 1981, Barry Blechman and Stephen Kaplan author books on the Soviet military buildup. Blechman, then head of the defense analysis staff at Brookings, discusses how the U.S. should respond to Soviet strengthening of military forces and defense programs. Kaplan, a Brookings research associate, presents case studies on Soviet use of military power to attain political objectives outside of its borders."
1978			Brookings researcher Gary Orfield publishes Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy, which argues that American schools have a legal and moral obligation to practice desegregation busing. Orfield calls out school and government officials for intentionally dragging their feet through this process and asserts that more must be done to achieve the goal of desegregation than simply busing students to different schools.
1979			"1979. American Decision-Making in Vietnam. Brookings scholar Leslie Gelb (now president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations) and then-Brookings research associate Richard Betts (later a Harvard and Columbia professor) conclude in a study of America’s role in Vietnam that while the foreign policy outcome of America’s involvement was a failure, the decision-making system worked as designed. Yale historian Gaddis Smith wrote that “If an historian were allowed but one book on the American involvement in Vietnam, this would be it.”"
1980		Publication	Norman Ornstein from American Enterprise Institute and Thomas E. Mann at Brookings jointly publish Vital Statistics on Congress, detailing the election and composition of the United States Congress membership, party structure, and staff. Mann and Ornstein also document the growing partisan divide in Congress and track the demographics of senators and representatives. The book would be published entirely online in 2013.
Early 1980s			"Joseph Pechman, director of the Economic Studies program at Brookings, pushed hard for comprehensive reform of the U.S. tax code in the early 1980s. His research led to the Tax Reform Act of 1986—a major bill that had a profound impact on the U.S. economy." Research by Joseph Pechman at
1986			Research by Brookings Senior Fellow Joseph A. Pechman leads to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a major bill that would have a profound impact on the economy of the United States. The act is designed to simplify the tax code, broaden the tax base, and eliminate many tax shelters and preferences. Pechman’s Federal Tax Policy is essential to those reforms.
1990		Publication	John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe at Brookings publish Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, which examines the growing dissatisfaction with the school system in the United States. They propose a new system of public education constructed around competition among schools, parent-student choice, and agency within the system.
1992			Norman Ornstein from American Enterprise Institute and Thomas E. Mann at Brookings publish reports from the Renewing Congress Project, which focuses on ways to improve congressional debate and action on legislation, enhance relationships between parties, and fix the campaign finance system. Their work makes a significant contribution to the debate about congressional reform.
1994			Brookings Senior Fellow Raymond L. Garthoff authors The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War, which shows that the United States did not win the Cold War with President Reagan’s military buildup, but instead, “‘victory’ came when a new generation of Soviet leaders realized how badly their system at home and their policies abroad had failed.”
1994			Anthony Downs at Brookings authors New Visions for Metropolitan America, which discusses the problem of rapid expansion of cities and suburban areas. In 1998, Bruce Katz’s “Reviving Cities: Think Metropolitan,” examines problems caused by explosive urban sprawl and emphasizes the necessity of a federal metropolitan agenda. Katz later becomes founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings."
1995			Brookings launches its website, located at www.brook.edu.
1995		Leadership	Foreign Policy Veteran Michael Armacost becomes the fifth president of Brookings.
1995		Publication	Brookings scholar Susan Woodward publishes Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War, which studies the impact of collapsing state authority and worsening economic conditions in triggering the Breakup of Yugoslavia.
1996			Brookings scholars Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell publish Growing Artificial Societies which applies agent-based computer modelling in their groundbreaking study of human social interactions. The authors model an artificial society “from the bottom up” that can account for evolutionary change.
1997		Recognition	Brookings ranks as the first-most influential and first in credibility among 27 think tanks considered in a survey of congressional staff and journalists.
1998			Francis Deng and Roberta Cohen at Brookings publish Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement, which analyzes the causes and consequences of internal displacement. The book is called “a landmark study” by diplomat Richard Holbrooke.
2001			Political scientist Ron Haskins and economist Isabel Sawhill at Brookings, team to study the United States policies on children and families. A proposal by Sawhill and researcher Adam Thomas for a child tax credit becomes part of major tax legislation.
2001			Exactly one week before the September 11 attacks Brookings’s TV and radio studio opens for business. The first live television feed occurs on the afternoon of 9/11 with CNN.
2001			After the September 11 attacks, with remarkable speed, Brookings experts produce influential proposals for homeland security and intelligence operations. Protecting the American Homeland is published on October 25.
2001			Brookings scholar Isabel Sawhill writes a roposal that would help forge bi-partisan support in Congress to extend the benefits of the child tax credit in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 to lower- and middle-income families.
2002	January 9		Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
2002		Leadership	American foreign policy analyst Strobe Talbott becomes the sixth president of Brookings.
2002			Brookings establishes the Center for Middle East Policy "to promote a better understanding of the policy choices facing American decision makers in the Middle East.
2003			Led by former Paul Volcker, the second National Commission on the Public Service (a project of a Brookings policy center) releases a set of recommendations for government reform, entitled Urgent Business for America. The Commission offers rationales and ideas for reorganizing the federal government that stem from the work of the center.
2003			"How to Carry on Government Functions. The Continuity of Government Commission, a joint effort between Brookings and AEI, issues the first of a set of reports on how to carry on the functions of government in the event of a massive and catastrophic attack on the main institutions of the U.S. government. These reports are: “The Continuity of Congress” (2003), “The Continuity of the Presidency” (2009), and “The Continuity of the Supreme Court” (2011)."
2004			Brookings scholars William Gale, Mark Iwry, and Peter Orszag attempt to influence legislation by making the case that helping Americans save for retirement requires financial incentives for low- and middle-income workers coupled with new corporate practices to make saving easier.
2004 (July 6)			The Brookings Institution announces that the former Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy (founded in 1966) will become the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.
2006			Brookings establishes in Beijing the Brookings-Tsinghua Center (BTC) for Public Policy as a partnership between the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing. The Center seeks to produce research in areas of fundamental importance for China's development and for US-China relations. The BTC is directed by Qi Ye.
2006			Brookings' Global Economy and Development program is founded. The program aims "to shape the policy debate on how to improve global economic cooperation and fight global poverty and sources of social stress."
2006–2007			Brookings scholars provide analysis and recommendations throughout the Iraq War. Michael O’Hanlon, William Quant, and Shibley Telhami at Brookings, participated in the Iraq Study Group in 2006, which recommends an increase in U.S. combat troops in Iraq that occurs in 2007.
2008		International expansion	The Brookings Doha Center is established in Doha as an overseas center of the Brookings Institution.
2009	December		United States President Barack Obama chooses Brookings as the venue for announcing his plan for creating jobs and spurring economic growth.
2009			The Brookings' Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform report Bending the Curve: Effective steps to address long-term healthcare spending growth is published. It would become widely credited as being the most constructive contribution to the conversation on addressing long-term growth in health care spending.n
2009			Scholars Warwick McKibbin, Adele Morris, and Peter Wilcoxen at Brookings recommend how carbon price agreements can strengthen international emissions targets.
2009			Brookings experts contribute with ideas on how best to recover from the Great Recession with a steady stream of analysis and recommendations on fiscal and monetary stimulus plans, as well as the automotive and banking bailouts.
2010			Brookings expert and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, serves as an editor for the book Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security, which highlights how the effects of poverty in fragile states can spill over borders and threaten U.S. national security.
2011			E.J. Dionne and William Galston at Brookings play an influential role with their report A Half-Empty Government Can't Govern, which informs the United States Senate the passage of the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011, which becomes law in the same year.
2012			Brookings scholar Carol Graham publishes Happiness around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires, in which she studies happiness across developed and developing countries.
2012			The Brookings Institution launches the Global Cities Initiative as a joint project with JPMorgan Chase. The five-year project aims to help leaders in U.S. metropolitan areas reorient their economies toward greater engagement in world markets.
2013		Assistance	Experts at Brookings assist on the development of the next generation of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, contributing to their mission to improve the lives of people worldwide.
2013		International expansion	Brookings opens in India its third overseas office, the New Delhi Center. Organized and staffed in large part by Indian nationals, it serves as a platform for relevant and productive research centered on India’s changing role in the world.
2015			The Brookings' Center for Universal Education joins the Michelle Obama's initiative Let Girls Learn, which aims at helping adolescent girls attain "a quality education that empowers them to reach their full potential".
2015			United States President Barack Obama promotes the Automatic IRA to increase workers' retirement security. The idea originates in research by the Retirement Security Project at Brookings.
2017	October		Former general John R. Allen becomes the seventh president of Brookings.
2017		Financial	Brookings reports assets of US$524.2 million.

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