Obama Selects Kathryn Dominguez to Fed Board

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama has chosen Kathryn Dominguez, an economist on the University of Michigan, to hitch the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the White House stated on Monday. During this time, Dr. Dominguez also served as a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley from 2008 to 2009 and as an Academic Visitor at The London School of Economics and Political Science from 2003 to 2004.

Dominguez, a professor at the University of Michigan, will join Allan Landon, former chief executive officer of the Bank of Hawaii, in awaiting approval by the Senate.

Two seats on the seven-member board are vacant.

Ms. Dominguez’s nomination could pave the way for the Senate to hold hearings on both nominees.

Earlier in her career, Dominguez criticized a suggestion by future Nobel Prize victor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman that a central bank can stimulate the economy even when it has lowered its interest rate target to zero if it can “credibly promise to be irresponsible” later by stoking higher inflation.

The White House said Dominguez’s expertise will be particularly important as the Fed considers how worldwide financial conditions interact with US monetary policy and banking regulations.

Dominguez received her PhD in economics from Yale University in 1987.

“Professor Dominguez is a renowned scholar and teacher with a well-deserved reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on global financial markets”, said U-M President Mark Schlissel.

Writing in 2012, she sketched out scenarios for the future of the euro.

In a paper from 2013, Dominguez made the case that much of the surprising slowness of the United States recovery from the financial crisis stemmed in large part from shocks originating in Europe.