National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc.

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, operates as a prime recipient of federal research grants across a broad portfolio of economic, health, and social policy research, with no federal contract prime awardee status. NBER conducts applied economic research and convenes research networks on topics ranging from macroeconomics and labor markets to health disparities and public policy evaluation, serving 46 distinct federal customer agencies primarily through grants rather than contracts.

NBER's federal footprint is dominated by grant awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which accounts for the plurality of recent funding. NSF's Division of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) has been the largest single source of prime grants, funding projects on heterogeneous-agent macroeconomic models, inflation measurement, income inequality databases, trade policy analysis, and regional innovation ecosystems. Recent NSF awards include a $1.029 billion cooperative agreement to establish and operate the Economic Measurement Research Institute (EMRI, CFDA 47.084), which launched October 1, 2025, to modernize official U.S. economic statistics using data from the 21st-century information economy. The institute will focus on redesigning retail spending and inflation measurement, integrating administrative data for gig economy statistics, improving intangible capital measurement, and supporting demonstration projects; Matthew Shapiro at the University of Michigan serves as co-director, with Michigan as a named sub-recipient. Over the past several years, NBER has also received substantial project grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) across the National Institute on Aging (CFDA 93.866), the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (CFDA 93.307), and the National Institute of Drug Abuse, supporting research on dialysis facility expansion and health disparities, Alzheimer's disease and dementia economics, mid-life mortality, opioid policy spillovers, and aging research coordination. A representative recent award: $2.159 million from the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (September 3, 2026, CFDA 93.307) to investigate the geographic distribution of dialysis facility expansion and its differential impact on end-stage kidney disease outcomes, with work performed in Cambridge through July 31, 2030.

Customer concentration reflects NSF's dominance: the top five funding agencies by award count—NSF, NSF's Division of Social and Economic Science, the Department of Health and Human Services NIH cluster, and the Department of Commerce components—account for 77% of recent awards. By dollar value, concentration is looser; the top five agencies by potential value represent only 16% of combined potential value, signaling that NBER's portfolio consists of many small-to-moderate grants rather than a few large anchors. Specific customer agencies with recurring engagement include the National Science Foundation (313 prime awards), the National Institute on Aging (44 awards), the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Internal Revenue Service, reflecting NBER's role as a research convener and data analyst for federal statistical agencies and social science funders.

NBER's capability portfolio centers on applied economic research, data infrastructure development, and research network management. Work is grounded in hypothesis-driven empirical analysis using administrative datasets, field experiments, and structural economic modeling. Representative recent prime awards illustrate the scope: a $3.065 million NSF Project Grant (September 1, 2024, CFDA 47.075) to fund a series of research meetings on market frictions and financial risks affecting U.S. financial stability, in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Financial Research; a $626 thousand NSF award (September 1, 2023) to host the NBER Summer Institute from 2023 to 2026, a four-week annual conference bringing together over 2,800 economists from 425+ institutions for workshops on macroeconomics, trade, education, and social policy; and a $937 thousand NSF award (September 15, 2023, CFDA 47.075) to support a series of research meetings on transportation economics covering infrastructure, supply chains, decarbonization policy, employment effects, cost-benefit measurement, and distributional consequences. NBER also conducts hosting and coordination functions for federal research initiatives: a $420 thousand cooperative agreement with the Social Security Administration (September 30, 2023, through September 29, 2028) to operate the NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center, and a $1.559 million NSF award (September 1, 2023, CFDA 47.075) to fund meetings on market frictions and financial risks in partnership with Treasury's Office of Financial Research. Data infrastructure and public goods figure prominently: awards fund the construction of open-access databases on U.S. manufacturing establishments from historical Census records, earnings inequality and income dynamics across countries, product-level tariff rates from 1789 to present, and displacement events in American towns from 1850 to 1940 using machine learning on historical newspapers.

NBER's recent activity trajectory shows moderate volume: five awards in 2026 (year-to-date as of October 2026), eight in 2025, 30 in 2024, 23 in 2023, and 26 in 2022. The vendor has 24 awards with ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months, representing a moderate recompete exposure. NBER operates overwhelmingly as a prime recipient (97% of awards); sub-award participation is sparse, with 18 sub-awards across the dataset, mostly as a sub-recipient under larger research grants hosted by universities (MIT, Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, University of Chicago, Tulane, UCSF). In these sub-recipient roles, NBER typically contributes data infrastructure, research leadership, or specialized analytical capacity—for example, serving as the maintainer of the Health Systems and Provider Database under Harvard Medical School research on health system integration and patient outcomes, or contributing to research on immigration and technological leadership under University of Chicago principal leadership.

NBER is not a federal contractor and holds no contract vehicles, IDIQs, GWACs, or BPAs in the source. The vendor competes exclusively for federal research grants and cooperative agreements under peer-reviewed programs administered by NSF, NIH, USAID, the Department of Commerce, and other civilian agencies. NBER is a tax-exempt, non-profit research organization with no set-aside posture; it does not compete under 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB, or other small-business designations. The organization's federal footprint is concentrated in research support and knowledge infrastructure—grant management, data curation, researcher convening, and applied economic analysis—rather than in service delivery, manufacturing, or systems integration.