White House Council of Economic Advisers

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Position Summary

The Council of Economic Advisers seeks a Staff Economist to lead supply chain analysis across the nation's most critical and strategically vulnerable sectors. The role combines applied microeconomic and trade analysis with hands-on supply chain mapping—tracing where critical goods and their upstream inputs actually originate—and modeling how economic, trade, and procurement tools can shift sourcing toward the United States and partner nations.

The portfolio spans four priority areas: pharmaceuticals (finished drugs, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and key starting materials (KSMs)); semiconductors (with an emphasis on legacy/mature-node "foundational" chips); batteries and drones (cells, components, and the unmanned aircraft supply base); and critical minerals (extraction and, critically, processing and refining). A common analytical toolkit applies across all four: identify single-source vulnerabilities, distinguish direct from indirect exposure, and design economic levers to diversify supply.

This is a high-impact position for an economist who can move fluently between rigorous quantitative work and concrete policy design, and who is comfortable briefing senior officials on time-sensitive questions.
________________________________________

Key Responsibilities

Supply chain mapping and dependency analysis (across all priority sectors)

Build and maintain an evidence base on where critical goods and their upstream inputs originate, identifying single-source and country-concentration risks.
Distinguish extraction/assembly from the true chokepoints, which often sit midstream—e.g., mineral processing and refining, mature-node foundry capacity, cell and cathode/anode manufacturing, and API/KSM synthesis.
Integrate data from customs and import records, HS/HTS-level trade flows, FDA establishment registrations, foundry capacity by node and geography, and commercial supply chain sources to quantify concentration (e.g., HHI, single-country shares) and map vulnerabilities.
Develop criticality metrics (defense and clinical relevance, substitutability, shortage/disruption history) and resilience metrics (geographic diversification, domestic capacity, inventory, stockpiles).

Sector-specific focus areas

Pharmaceuticals: finished-drug, API, and KSM sourcing; shortage risk.
Semiconductors: legacy/mature-node chips embedded in autos, defense systems, medical devices, appliances, and grid hardware; risks from non-market capacity expansion and price suppression.
Batteries and drones: lithium-ion cells and components, cathode/anode and precursor materials, and the unmanned aircraft (UAS) supply base, including secure-component and trusted-supplier considerations.
Critical minerals: rare earths, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, gallium, germanium and similar.

Policy tool analysis

Model the cost, feasibility, and likely supply response of economic and procurement levers, including trade remedies, Buy American and domestic-content preferences and penalties, federal procurement preferences and restrictions, advance purchase and offtake commitments, stockpiling, and targeted onshoring/ally-shoring incentives.
Estimate effects on prices, availability and shortage risk, domestic manufacturing investment, and downstream costs; assess budgetary impact, unintended consequences, and gaming risks.
Conduct cost-benefit and trade-off analysis weighing resilience gains against consumer-price and fiscal effects.

Partner-country and friend-shoring strategy

Analyze opportunities to diversify supply with allied and partner nations, including the economic case for ally-shoring of upstream production and processing.
Assess how trade preferences, joint procurement, coordinated incentives, and partnership frameworks could stand up trusted alternative suppliers and shared stockpiles.

Briefing and inter-agency work

Produce memos, charts, and briefing materials.
Support inter-agency analysis with partners.
________________________________________

Qualifications

Required

Advanced degree in economics or a closely related quantitative field (PhD preferred; exceptional candidates with a master's and strong relevant experience considered).
Demonstrated applied skills in microeconomics, industrial organization, and/or international trade.
Strong empirical and data skills (e.g., Stata, R, or Python) and the ability to work with messy real-world trade, customs, regulatory, and industry datasets.
Ability to translate technical analysis into clear, decision-ready writing for non-economist principals.- Capacity to work quickly and accurately under deadline pressure on sensitive policy questions.

Preferred

Familiarity with one or more priority sectors: pharmaceutical manufacturing and the API/KSM value chain; semiconductor manufacturing and the mature-node landscape; battery and UAS supply chains; or critical minerals extraction and processing.
Knowledge of U.S. trade- and industrial-policy instruments.
Experience with supply-chain, network, or concentration analysis.
Prior government, think tank, or inter-agency experience.