(Reuters) – The White House is considering two economists who held senior Treasury Department posts in the Obama administration for the No. 2 job at the Federal Reserve, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Both Janice Eberly and Karen Dynan served as the chief economist at Treasury during Barack Obama’s presidency and are well regarded by current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the paper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
President Joe Biden is weighing whom to appoint as vice chair at the Fed after bringing Lael Brainard from the central bank to be one of his chief economic advisers. Brainard, who had been on the Fed Board of Governors since 2014 and had been vice chair beginning last May, left the Fed in the last week.
Eberly has a Phd in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently senior associate dean at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Dynan’s doctorate in economics is from Harvard University, where she is a professor. She previously worked as an economist at the Fed for 17 years ending in 2009.
The White House declined to comment but has previously said it expects to make a nomination soon.
Last week, the Journal reported that Austan Goolsbee, another Obama administration veteran who took over in January as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, was under consideration. On Wednesday, the paper said Goolsbee had faced resistance from some Democrats who have urged Biden to appoint a woman or person of color to the job.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
