Economist and central banker John Williams will serve as the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the bank announced Tuesday, taking on a key role overseeing Wall Street and setting monetary policy for the country.
Williams will replace outgoing President William Dudley, who is retiring, in June. Williams is the president of the San Francisco Fed, having replaced former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen in that role.
Williams is a PhD economist and a longtime member of the Fed system. In recent months, he has been regarded as a fairly “hawkish” voice on monetary policy, meaning more inclined to favor interest rate increases to stave off potential inflation. He also is known for producing original research, including on the “natural” rate of interest, meaning the short-term interest rate that would go along with a fully healthy economy with stable inflation.
This year, he’s been among a small number of Fed officials to call for a rethinking of how the central bank controls the country’s money supply and moving away from the practice of simply targeting 2 percent inflation.
He will now be one of the most important economic policymakers in the country. Because of its historical importance in the financial capital of the country and responsibility for carrying out the Fed’s monetary policy actions, the New York Fed has a permanent voting spot on the Fed’s monetary policy committee.
“John is a dedicated public servant, a distinguished thought-leader in monetary policymaking, and a proven executive and public communicator,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a statement provided by the New York Fed. “I have valued his insight and wise counsel during my years at the Federal Reserve and look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead.”
Former chairwoman Janet Yellen, now a scholar at the Brookings Institution, also praised Williams in a statement issued by the think tank, crediting his research for helping to provide the grounding for the Fed’s emergency actions in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Williams served as a top researcher for the San Francisco Fed during Yellen’s tenure there.
Williams was selected by the New York Fed’s directors and his appointment was approved by the Fed’s Board of Governors in D.C.
His selection came as a disappointment to a group of congressional Democrats who have lobbied the Fed to consider more nominees who are from minority groups or from outside the Fed system. “Mr. Williams is a distinguished and respected economist; however, I am disappointed by the search committee’s selection of another Fed insider,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.
Williams’ PhD is from Stanford, and he also has an MA from the London School of Economics. Before studying for his master’s, he managed a pizza parlor in Berkeley, California.
