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Paul Solman

About Paul

Paul Solman has been a correspondent for the PBS News Hour since 1985, mainly covering business and economics.

While attending Brandeis University, Solman joined the Brandeis newspaper, The Justice, and eventually became its editor. He got his first journalism job in 1970 at the alternative weekly Boston After Dark.

Solman became founding editor of the rival alternative weekly The Real Paper in 1972 and went on to become a feature writer and investigative reporter.

Solman received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978.

After a few years of local PBS reporting, he inaugurated the PBS business documentary series, ENTERPRISE with fellow Nieman Fellow Zvi Dor-Ner.

In the 1980s, Solman produced documentaries, returned to local reporting, and joined the Harvard Business School faculty, teaching media, finance and business history in the school's Advanced Management Program. He also co-authored “Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield” in 1983, which appeared in Japanese, German and Taiwanese editions. He joined the MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1985.

In the '90s, with sociologist Morrie Schwartz, a teacher of his at Brandeis, Solman helped create -- and wrote the introduction to the book "Morrie: In His Own Words," which preceded "Tuesdays with Morrie.” In 2015, Solman co-authored “Get What's Yours: the Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security.”

Solman has lectured on college campuses since the '80s and has written for numerous publications, including the Journal of Economic Education. As a one-time cab driver, kindergarten teacher, crafts store co-owner and management consultant, he was also the author and presenter of "Discovering Economics with Paul Solman," a series of videos to accompany introductory economics textbooks.

In 2007, he joined the faculty at Yale, where he contributed to the university's Grand Strategy course for a decade. In 2011, he was the Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor at his alma mater, Brandeis, where he taught a seminar, "Economic Grand Strategies: From Chimps to Champs? Or Chumps?" He has taught regularly at West Point, the Naval War College and was an adjunct faculty member at Gateway Community College in New Haven, CT, where he created the evening program, “Yale@Gateway.” In 2016, he was a Visiting Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University.

Since 2019, Solman has chaired the board of the anti-polarization American Exchange Project, a nonpolitical nonprofit domestic "foreign exchange" program that introduces high school seniors from everywhere in America to each other, sends and embeds them, for free, in communities unlike their own.

Solman took up tennis at 50. His father was the American expressionist artist Joseph Solman. He is married with two children and seven grandchildren.

Full Bio

Paul’s Recent Stories

Economy Aug 31

Negotiation Expert Robert Mnookin Answers Your Questions

Last week, Paul Solman spoke with Harvard Law School professor Robert Mnookin, an expert on negotiation, about his new book "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight." Mnookin offered to take some viewer questions. Here…

Economy Aug 27

The Fed Speech: Paul Solman Channels Ben Bernanke

Years ago, Saturday Night Live's Kevin Nealon debuted a character named "Mr. Subliminal" whom he still reprises. The gimmick: Nealon talks and then occasionally, under his breath, says what he's really thinking. In October, President Obama economic adviser Austan…

Economy Aug 26

Ask Negotiation Expert Robert Mnookin Your Questions

On Thursday's NewsHour, Paul Solman talks to Harvard Law School professor Robert Mnookin, an expert on negotiation, about his new book "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight." "My approach is always to see if I…

Economy Aug 18

A Second Look at Strategic Mortgage Defaulters

In anticipation of Tuesday's rerun of our report on strategic mortgage defaults, producer Lee Koromvokis checked back in with the characters we interviewed back in April for the story. _pap_embed_custom('news01n3e69qe80',482,304,""); Fort Myers restaurant manager Josh Bartlett is still…

Economy Aug 12

More from 99ers: Unemployment Leads to Foreclosure

Updated 4:19 p.m. Given today's news that foreclosures jumped 9 percent in July, we've posted the last of our 99er interview outtakes, in which Faith Phillips tells a striking story: She'll be paying off condo fees on her foreclosed…

Economy Aug 11

Making Sense: More From the ’99ers’

There's been quite a bit of reaction to our story last Friday on the extension (or non-extension) of unemployment insurance benefits past 99 weeks. You can read some of it here in the comments section on the Making…

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