Elena Spatoulas Patel, PhD
Senior Fellow & Co-Director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
The Brookings Institution
Dr. Elena Spatoulas Patel is a nationally recognized economist and tax policy scholar serving as Co-Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at The Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on how tax systems, health policy, and social safety net programs shape economic behavior, labor markets, and long-term financial well-being. Dr. Patel’s work examines the design of tax systems, investment incentives, labor market responses to policy changes, and the economic effects of healthcare institutions and health shocks.
Before joining Brookings, she served as the Sorenson Assistant Professor at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business and held public-sector roles at the Council of Economic Advisers and the United States Department of the Treasury. Her expertise in tax policy and public finance offers critical insight into nonprofit hospital taxation, accountability, and public benefit policy debates.