John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He has served as the director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and was founding director of Stanford's Introductory Economics Center.

Taylor's fields of expertise are monetary policy, fiscal policy, and international economics. He has an active interest in public policy. Taylor served as a member of the California Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors from 1996–98 and 2005–10. He served as senior economist on President Ford's Council of Economic Advisers in 1976, as a member of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 through 1991, as economic adviser to the Bob Dole presidential campaign in 1996, and as economic adviser to the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 2000. He was also a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 2001.

For four years from 2001 to 2005, Taylor served as Undersecretary of Treasury for International Affairs where he was responsible for U.S. policies in international finance, which includes currency markets, trade in financial services, foreign investment, international debt and development, and oversight of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He was also responsible for coordinating financial policy with the G-7 countries, was chair of the working party on international macroeconomics at the OECD, and was a member of the Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

In 2007, Taylor was awarded the Adam Smith Award from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) for his work as a groundbreaking researcher, public servant, and teacher during a career of more than 30 years and his outstanding leadership in the field of economics. Taylor was also awarded the Alexander Hamilton Award for his overall leadership in international finance at the U.S. Treasury and the Treasury Distinguished Service Award for designing and implementing the currency reforms in Iraq, and the Medal of the Republic of Uruguay for his work in resolving the 2002 financial crisis. In 2005, The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research awarded Taylor with the George P. Shultz Distinguished Public Service Award. Taylor has also won many teaching awards; he was awarded the Hoagland Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching and the Rhodes Prize for his high teaching ratings in Stanford's introductory economics course. He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his research, and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society; he formerly served as vice president of the American Economic Association.

Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1984, Taylor held positions as professor of economics at Princeton University and Columbia University. Taylor received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1973.