Edgar Russell Fiedler (April 21, 1929 – March 15, 2003)^[1] was an American economist.

Fiedler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later lived in Scarsdale, New York, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.^[2] He was a 1951 graduate of the University of Wisconsin.^[2] He received an M.B.A. at the University of Michigan in 1956, and a Ph.D. in economics from New York University in 1970.^[2]

He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1971 to 1975 during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.^[2]

He served as Vice President, economic counselor, senior fellow and adviser of The Conference Board, a business research organization in Manhattan, which he first joined in 1975.^[2] He edited its monthly publication, Economic Times.^[3]

In the 1980s he was an adjunct professor of economics at the Columbia Graduate School of Business.^[3] He authored The Roots of Stagflation (1984).^[4][2]

He wrote the following wry rules for economic forecasters: “If you must forecast, forecast often. And if you’re ever right, never let ’em forget it.”^[5]

• Saxon, Wolfgang. "Edgar Russell Fiedler, 73, Economist and Treasury Aide." The New York Times. A27. March 19, 2003.